Indigenous people vulnerable to climate change

Joe DeCapua in Voice of America: Researchers say indigenous people are among the most vulnerable to climate change. They’re studying how extreme weather events can trigger more disease outbreaks Scientists say extreme weather events have accompanied a rise in global temperatures. Droughts, heavy rains and floods have put indigenous people around the world at risk.

“I would say that indigenous people are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts because of their close relationship with the local environment and ecosystems and also their dependence on those local ecosystems for their livelihood, as well as a lot of complex and interrelated social issues and inequities and inequalities,” said Sherilee Harper, who’s a PHD candidate in aboriginal people’s health at the University of Guelph near Toronto, Canada. She’s been studying the effects of climate change on the Batwa people in southwest Uganda.

“So for instance, after a period of heavy rainfall or flooding there’s often increased in bacteria and pathogens in the water due to runoff and things like that. That can increase a risk of exposure to water-borne disease. Now, climate change scenarios are predicting we’re going to see more of these periods of heavy rainfall more frequently, longer duration and more intense instances. So we’re expecting that’ll increase the prevalence and risk of exposure to water-borne disease,” she said.

...The Uganda project is part of what’s called the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change Project. It studies the effects of rising temperatures in Uganda, Canada and Peru...

Dancing in a Batwa village in Uganda, shot by Michael Hill, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license