Program on the Environment

Indigenous peoples face inequity with environmental policies created throughout the Arctic that do not consider their sovereignty, subsistence practices, and culture. This leads to serious consequences like health conditions and disconnection from culture for Indigenous Peoples. The aim of this study was to understand how oral histories could be employed within Indigenous Arctic communities to communicate from their perspective how environmental policies impact them and how they need policies to change for the sake of their livelihoods. To do this, I worked with NOAA Voices, an oral history archive housed by NOAA Fisheries, on the Magnuson-Stevens Act oral history collection to understand the impacts the Magnuson-Stevens Act has had on communities in Washington and Alaska. This allowed me to more thoroughly understand how oral histories can be employed to share narratives from Indigenous populations to inform policy. Aside from this experiential learning, a literature review was completed on Arctic oral traditions, Indigenous Knowledge within environmental policy, and Indigenous sovereignty within the Arctic. The results illustrate that while oral histories have the potential to ensure that first-person narratives, priorities, and knowledge from Indigenous Peoples are shared and in turn included into environmental management frameworks, a deeper understanding and respect of their knowledge and lifeway must be incorporated into western society. The Arctic continues to melt, and without equity for Indigenous Peoples in these policy frameworks, they will continue to face the brunt of the impact with no political power to change it.