Knowledge Exchange among Local Residents and Earth Scientists on Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta

Abstract:

Within Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD) there exists a strong confluence of environmental change processes, natural hazards, critical habitats for wildlife, and a large subsistence-based human population with high cultural vitality. The high relevance of direct consequences of Arctic environmental change to human livelihoods and well-being on the YKD highlights the need for effective exchange of information between local people and natural scientists. In November 2018, we held a Knowledge Exchange meeting at the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge (YDNWR) headquarters in Bethel, AK. The goal of the meeting was to foster two-way exchange of information that bridges the perspectives of natural scientists and Yup’ik people living on the YKD. Fourteen people participated in the Knowledge Exchange meeting, including seven YKD residents from the villages of Chevak, Emmonak, and Alakanuk. The participants represented YKD villages that occupy very different biophysical environments and existing reports from area residents indicate a wide range of environmental change processes and impacts to landscapes, infrastructure, and important subsistence wildlife species. During the Knowledge Exchange meeting we recorded nearly 16 hours of discussion and testimonials from YKD elders. Several meeting participants speak Yup’ik or Cup’ik as their first language, so discussions were held in multiple languages with a translator. Discussion topics included a wide range of environmental change processes and their implications, prompted both by results of project activities and by local observations and concerns voiced by meeting participants. The involvement of elders was particularly helpful because their frame of reference spans many decades and encompasses the entire period-of-record for high-resolution remote sensing. Meeting discussions have informed and enriched a wide range of scientific investigations including tundra vegetation productivity (i.e., the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index [NDVI]), ecological disturbances, permafrost thaw, shrub expansion, and the regional impacts of climate change and sea-ice decline.