A Decade of Indigenous Knowledge Research in the Yukon River Basin: Reflection on “Indigenous Observations of Change in the Lower Yukon River Basin, Alaska”

• Published in: Human organization 2021-09, Vol.80 (3), p.234-245
• Main Author: Herman-Mercer, Nicole M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptation; Anthropology; Climate change; Councils; Cultural anthropology; Data collection; Environmental aspects; Fishermen; Food security; Indigenous peoples; Knowledge; Local knowledge; Salmon; Social sciences; Towns
• ISSN: 0018-7259; 1938-3525
• DOI: 10.17730/1938-3525-80.3.234

Herman-Mercer reflects on her first article "Indigenous Observations of Change in the Lower Yukon River Basin, Alaska." The observations and knowledge presented in this study have become part of an ever-growing catalog of studies representing, and part of a chorus of Indigenous communities across the Arctic and Subarctic conveying, the impacts of climate change in this region. The broad observations of environmental change reported in Indigenous Observations 2011, including impacts to subsistence and safety, are more dire and apparent than ten years ago when this article was published. Instances of diseased salmon continue to be reported by subsistence fishers, and the salmon runs have declined so severely since Indigenous Observations 2011 was published that there have been several years in which the commercial and or the subsistence salmon fishery was closed on the Yukon River, with impacts to household economies, food security, and culture. The then-new dangers associated with travel on river ice continue to be a concern across the Yukon River where the thinner river ice and inconsistent freeze up and break up have become the norm.