The winning project Nan guk’anàatii ejuk t’igwinjik (The land we are taking care of is changing) aims to integrate Gwich’in ecological classifications with climate and geospatial data to assess and adapt to landscape change across the Gwich’in Settlement Region.
The Nan guk’anàatii ejuk t’igwinjik project brings together Gwich’in knowledge and scientific modelling to assess the impacts of climate change and industrial development on culturally important landscapes in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Building on over three decades of cultural documentation by the Gwich’in Tribal Council’s Department of Culture and Heritage and twelve years of collaboration with the Arctic Landscape Ecology Lab at University of Victoria, the project will classify Gwich’in landscapes through Gwich’in knowledge and language, and model future disturbances to evaluate their impacts on key harvesting areas and wildlife species. This work will support Indigenous-led land use planning, cultural protection, and climate adaptation, and will provide a transferable model for combining Indigenous and scientific knowledge systems across the Arctic.
Photo courtesy of Arlyn Charlie
