yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Natural Custodians: Indigenous Lessons in Reconnecting with Nature | National Geographic


3m read
·Nov 10, 2024

The Arctic is warming up to four times faster than the rest of the world. Ice caps are melting and sea ice is retreating, changing the weather and disrupting marine life. To protect these polar ecosystems, we need to understand them. And no one knows the Arctic as well as the indigenous communities that live here.

Greenland is the world's largest island. It is one of the most extreme environments on Earth where polar night or 24 hour daylight can last for months and temperatures can reach -50. Inuit have thrived here since time immemorial. But the Arctic is changing, and it's happening in mere decades. Indigenous peoples of the far north have been adapting to change for millennia.

A new generation of Greenlanders is combining science and traditional knowledge and in the process, reframing perceptions of the Arctic. In Greenland, journalists and scientists come for one thing, for climate change. How do you see that as a Greenlander? There's a very powerful narrative around the Arctic these days and Arctic indigenous peoples, that we are the place of climate change. But we've lived here on these lands for thousands of years and there's a lot more to us than climate change.

What indigenous scientists can do is to bridge some of that gap. As a microbiologist I'm interested in understanding how being in nature, eating from nature impacts us through connecting us to the microbiology of our environment. Microbial species outnumber the stars in our galaxy, and they impact every living thing on earth, including Arctic biomes.

What we're looking at here is the downstream effect of nutrients like phosphate, silicate and nitrogen, how they affect the fjord systems out there specifically the phytoplankton. So this is a land-terminating glacier, feeding in via rivers. And so what's the difference between a marine-terminating glacier and a land-terminating one? The marine-terminating glacier creates an upwelling effect on nutrients, and these nutrients spike the biological production in the fjords.

Well, when they retreat back, we lose part of the microscopic plankton and they are in turn food for higher organisms like whales, for instance. It's all connected, right? In Kalaallisut, we have this incredibly meaningful word, Sila. Sila means the weather, it means consciousness, it means the spirit, it means outside. We're not separate from nature. When our minds are well, when the Sila inside of us is well, we can treat our environment well.

Right now, my work is very much focused on building the Sila biology program. We're going to be outside a lot like that supports mental health but it's also an excellent way of learning biology. When we eat from nature, when what we wear comes from nature. We are conscious that what we do has consequences.

People assume that it will have a really strong smell, but it's not strong, it's just very particular. It's very particular to iginneq. I'm currently so excited that I can't even think, I'm just in eating mode. My biggest hope is that we'll have Indigenous students coming out of this program who can use the skills that they've learned to make a difference for their communities.

Arctic peoples are uniquely placed to understand what is happening here and what it means to heal our relationship with nature. We just need to be willing to listen and to learn. Prada group and IOC/UNESCO launched SEA BEYOND to promote ocean education around the world. SEA BEYOND represents Prada Group's long-term commitment to supporting educational programs that connect the younger generation with marine ecosystems.

That's why Prada is donating one percent of profits from its Re-Nylon collection to generate innovative approaches, science-based solutions and humanitarian projects that address the global challenges facing our ocean.

More Articles

View All
What is Déjà vu?
Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. And today we’re going to discuss déjà vu. What is it, and why does it occur? You know, those moments where the current situation feels like it’s happened before? You’re certain it has, but you don’t know when, or how it became s…
Freedom According to the Declaration Of Independence | The Story of Us
I’m headed to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia to meet with its librarian Patrick Spiro. He studies documents dating back to the time of the country’s founding. What you’re looking at here is one of the first printings of the Declaration…
Simulations and repetition | Intro to CS - Python | Khan Academy
I’m running a coin flip experiment and I want to find out how likely each outcome is: heads or tails. So I flip a coin once, twice, 100 times. Once I’ve repeated that experiment enough times, I see that about 50% of my flips are heads and 50% are tails. …
Q&A With Grey: 500,000 Subscribers Edition
Hello Internet, Here we are: 500,000 subscribers – well, actually… by the time I finished this video it’s a bit more than that – but who knew that after I promised to do a Q&A that the pope would resign? Anyway… When I uploaded my first explanation …
Kevin O’Leary Reacts To My $10 Million Dollar Investment | Shark Tank
They’ll sell you out in two seconds. You will pay a brutal price for that. Never do that. Never, never, never, never. They loved their lifestyle. They went to zero. You must be ready to absolutely write that off because there’s a 50-50 chance you will. W…
Did Apple Just Have Its Moat Blocked? (Epic Games Lawsuit)
So here on the channel, I love talking long-term Warren Buffett-style value investing, and that strategy largely boils down to four key points. There’s understanding the business, so you know what you’re getting yourself into. Then you find a competitive …