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Fulbright Scholar Says Global Warming For Immediate Release: RICHMOND, Ind. — If Santa Claus has a wish himself this Christmas, it may be for the future of his reindeer friends, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Rudolph, etc., and their kin.
Following the November release of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), a recent joint project of the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee, many environmental scientists warned that unless something is done soon to control greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, global warming could push a variety of Arctic species to the verge of extinction by the end of this century. Although the ACIA mentions polar bears as being particularly at risk, Earlham graduate Karen Hibbard-Rode ’04 says the predicted six degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average winter temperatures across the region by 2099 means serious trouble for reindeer, too. Rangifer tarandus, the species that includes North American caribou and Eurasian reindeer, both wild and domestic, “will be greatly affected by climate change,” says Hibbard-Rode, who majored in biology at Earlham and who currently is studying the eco-sustainability of reindeer herds as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Lapland in Finland. “In the winter,” Hibbard-Rode explains, “reindeer crater into the snow to feed on the lichens beneath, and though they forage on shrubs and other vegetation when available, lichens are their primary source of food in winter. Reindeer give birth in the spring — usually in April — and calving success is greatly affected by the quality of winter forage. In a warmer climate, there will be an increase in freeze-thaw events, causing the snow surface to freeze into an ice crust and making it very hard for reindeer to crater for lichens, which in and of themselves are particularly vulnerable to warming.” Any significant decline in reindeer populations, cautions Hibbard-Rode, will correspondingly produce negative pressures on many other species in the region, including some human inhabitants. “It’s important to understand that while many processes in the Arctic are complex,” Hibbard-Rode says, “the species richness or diversity is lower than in more temperate areas, so changes in the range or population size of one species can have greater effects on the entire ecosystem. Reindeer are an important food source for many Arctic predators like wolves, lynx, and eagles, so their decline will cause similar declines in those predator populations. “Reindeer also are very important to human populations in the Arctic,” adds Hibbard-Rode, who was raised in the northern climes of Minnesota and estimates that she has spent, cumulatively, almost a year and a half of her life exploring various wilderness areas. “Indigenous peoples across the Arctic have traditionally been dependent upon both marine mammals — seals, whales — and reindeer or caribou as major food sources. A decline in reindeer due to climate change will affect nearly all Arctic peoples, from those living subsistence lifestyles to those herders living in a cash economy.” Cultural Identities Also Endangered In Finland, according to Hibbard-Rode, the domestication of reindeer is not only an important industry, but, in some quarters, also a vital element of Scandinavian culture. For the indigenous Saami (from the native “Saemieh,” meaning “the reindeer people”), reindeer herding continues to define a way of life in existence since at least the first century A.D. — the date of the first known written account of the Saemieh by Roman historian Tacitus — long before the emergence of Swedish, Finnish, or even Viking culture. “Yet, reindeer herding and husbandry is not completely domestic like livestock farming in the United States,” Hibbard-Rode says. “Each reindeer has an owner, denoted by a series of notches in the animal’s ear, and humans interact with them at regular pastures throughout the year. But, the reindeer continue to complete a yearly migration and depend mostly or entirely on wild food sources.” Still, even if worse comes to worst in terms of global warming in the 21st century, Hibbard-Rode says the Saami may fare better than their North American counterparts, the Inuit of northern Canada and Greenland. The Finnish Arctic falls mostly within a boreal forest ecosystem and is fairly well developed and industrialized, says Hibbard-Rode, conditions that may afford the Saami a somewhat greater range of alternatives for learning to cope with environmental changes brought on by global warming. The Inuit, on the other hand, are more isolated, inhabitants of considerably more barren landscapes and thus almost wholly dependent on the presence of sea ice for seal hunting. Should global warming continue to cause widespread melting of the Arctic ice sheet, Hibbard-Rode says, the Inuit’s only alternative could be legal action. “We learned in one class that the Inuit Circumpolar Conference may consider suing the U.S. government for essentially destroying their culture with greenhouse gas emissions,” reports Earlham’s latest Fulbright recipient, who enrolled in the Arctic Studies Program at the University of Lapland in August 2004 and will remain in Roveniemi, Finland — where winter temperatures hover near –30 C (-22 degrees F) — until next June. She says she plans to keep pursuing her interest in environment-culture relationships through further graduate studies in biology and additional biological field research. “I believe that we cannot separate studies of our environment from studies of ourselves,” says Hibbard-Rode. “One of my greatest goals in life is to find practical solutions to environmental problems, solutions that emphasize peoples’ needs and take responsibility for how our actions affect future generations.” What’s a Nice Girl Like You… Perhaps it's ironic, but Hibbard-Rode says it was her participation in Earlham’s Southwest Field Studies program, which annually takes several dozen students on a semester-long study of desert ecology that, in a way, helped to inspire her current involvement in the Arctic. “Much of what I did in the Southwest was focused on understanding people, yet it was also inextricably linked to place,” recounts Hibbard-Rode. She adds that the program’s mix of natural history, geology, Native American art and architecture, environmental anthropology and outdoor education was “key” in shaping her interdisciplinary interest in environment-culture interactions. “I returned from the Southwest with a renewed passion for studying biology and with a sense that cultures — even our own industrial-technological culture — are more influenced by their locations than we realize,” Hibbard-Rode says, noting that the Arctic Studies curriculum at the University of Lapland, like Earlham’s Southwest Field Studies program, is multifaceted in its educational approach, combining research in the natural sciences with aspects of history, sociology and the law. “I think that having an interdisciplinary understanding of the Arctic environment and related issues is essential if I am serious about becoming an Arctic biologist,” says Hibbard-Rode. “And, personally, I have always wanted to know what it feels like to live through the dark, cold Arctic winter. Well… I’m about to find out!” — EC — Contact:
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Earlham
College · 801 National Road West · Richmond,
Indiana 47374-4095 |