From Glaciers to Glass Sponge Reefs

Full Video - Kitsumkalum on Climate Change & Food Security

The Kitsumkalum have lived from the natural resources in their land and marine resources since time immemorial. They have adapted to the changes in the climate that occurred over millennia. They passed down this traditional knowledge to their children and their children’s children as not only as a means of survival for the tribe but also as an essential component of the management of the land the sea and the resources within. One of the most important components of their survival into the future was assured; the security of their food supplies.

Climate change continues to occur but now in an extraordinarily short‐time scale. Things are changing so fast that the plants and animals do not have a chance to adapt to the new conditions and they are quickly disappearing. Traditional knowledge of migration routes, salmon run timing, even the harvest season for seaweed and cockles is no longer conforming to the old ways, and there are profound changes to the food itself. The fish are smaller, the runs are late, the moose are full of parasites and the clam shells are thinner than they have ever been. Seaweed patches are failing and disappearing, and shellfish recruitment is failing to occur. The security of the food is no longer assured by the traditional knowledge of the elders.

The Kitsumkalum Fish and Wildlife Operations Department wants to know why, and understand what can be done to mitigate this onslaught of change. One thing we know; water runs down hill and fish swim upstream. We therefore have initiated a program designed to study the effects that the changing climate is having on Kitsumkalum Traditional Territory. We are studying the glaciers that nourish our rivers and streams, how their diminishing waters are affecting the productivity of the streams and lakes. We are studying how changes in stream temperature and other water quality parameters are affecting the survival of salmon fry, as well as how many salmon are returning to their streams to spawn. We want to understand what can we do to help. Creating awareness and education for our students and youth will contribute to our ability to adapt to these effects in the long term.

Further downstream we are studying the water quality of our marine environment and how the acidification of the Oceans is affecting our shellfish, while asking several questions such as are the warmer waters causing our seaweed harvest to fail? Are calm and cockle larvae surviving the acid water on our beaches? So many questions and to date no real answers. Torrential precipitation is causing many land slides to occur devastating moose overwintering habitat and creating barriers to salmon migration to the higher reaches of the watershed to spawn.