CALS 603 Planning Approaches for Climate Resiliency

October 12, 2022

Resilience or resilient is a word we hear often and we probably think it is generally positive, but deeper thinking is needed on the concept with respect to climate action and reconciliation. Moser et al. (2019) reviewed 52 scholarly articles about resilience in a variety of disciplines and identified three distinct interpretations of resilience: resilience as a system trait, resilience as a process and resilience as an outcome. In each of these interpretations, resilience has the potential to create a false sense of hope because it fosters the belief that Earth will naturally recover from climate impacts, it perpetuates the status quo with respect to Indigenous relations, and it relies heavily on Western values to define our future outcomes. By placing more value on Indigenous ways of knowing and being, we can develop a truer understanding of resilience.

As a systems trait, resilience is used synonymously with terms such as “buffering capacity” or “responsiveness” (Moser et al., 2019, p. 27), which are commonly used to explain the ability of an ecosystem to “bounce-back” (Moser et al., 2019, p. 30) to its original state. A lake ecosystem for example, might be resilient to heating because it receives cooler freshwater from upstream, but it will only remain cool up to a certain point. These thresholds “quantify how much disturbance an ecosystem can absorb before switching to another state” (Standish et al., 2014, p. 43). With climate change, some critical ecological thresholds have already been crossed, leading to irreversible changes in the system. The ecological resilience interpretation, if not better critiqued, can allow us to believe Mother Nature will repair herself and return back to her original state. Unfortunately, in all plausible future scenarios, Earth’s temperature will continue to rise and will stay there for centuries. We will cross more critical ecological thresholds where there is no bouncing-back. To create more understanding of this reality, we should put more emphasis on traditional ecological knowledge to create more holistic understandings of ecosystems, and we should engage decision-makers with Indigenous storytelling as a way to “change the way people see the problem” (Lickers, M., Personal Communication, 15 December 2021). 

When resilience is interpreted as a process, its characteristics include the ability to embrace change, form social networks and integrate local knowledge (Moser et al., 2019). Indigenous communities have been described as having this type of “social-ecological view of resilience” (Kirmayer et al., 2011, p. 84), which is valued in mental health promotion (Kirmayer et al., 2011). In this field, Indigenous resilience processes can be described as the ability to regulate emotion, valorize collective identity, revitalize language and culture and renew agency through political activism, empowerment, and reconciliation (Kirmayer et al., 2011). One downfall of this interpretation is that we may become too comfortable in the status quo, expecting Indigenous people to be naturally resilient, and potentially foster ambivalence towards reconciliation efforts. In fact, some environmental justice advocates are rejecting the “uncritical use of resilience” (Moser et al., 2019, p. 34). To understand resilience as a process from Indigenous perspectives, more effort should be made to use “Ethical Space” and other Indigenous-led holistic approaches “to support this principle of inclusion of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge through appropriate processes that do not marginalize the people to whom the knowledge belongs” (Fox & Hatcher, 2022, p. 4). 

As an outcome, resilience has been described as the “ability to make all kinds of changes to address environmental and socioeconomic problems and thus thrive, maintain or increase well-being, be safe, sustain livelihoods, etc.” (Moser et al., 2019, p. 25). The challenge with using the word as an outcome is that it assumes resilience is desirable according to the values of whoever is declaring it a possibility. We cannot assume resilience-building efforts are universally positive for a community and must challenge the underlying values and understand the associated trade-offs (Harris et al., 2017 as cited in Moser et al., 2019). When Gitxsan people were asked to describe resilience, many of the words they used are reflected in the Gitxsan wheel of philosophy (Figure 2), which guides Gitxsan values such as respect for the Land and for each other, as well as a sense of caretakership and responsibility to live sustainably (Wale, 2022). In order to achieve real, sustainable resilience in the future, Indigenous values should be incorporated into a more comprehensive definition of resilience as a future outcome. 

The uncritical use of resilience can give us a false sense of reality: not all ecosystems can bounce-back, we cannot ignore Indigenous processes and expect resilience, and our vision for future outcomes is mostly one-sided. We need to develop more realistic understandings of resilience through storytelling and integration of traditional ecological knowledge, by embracing Indigenous-led holistic processes, and by realigning our future goals with Indigenous values. These efforts will enhance reconciliation, and hopefully, lead us on a true path to resilience.

Figure 1 

Note. The philosophy wheel of the Gitxsan. “This wheel represents the values of the Gitxsan” (Smith, 2004 as cited in Wale, 2022). Adapted From “Gitxsan Rez-ilience,” by J. Wale, 2022. 

References

Fox, P., and Hatcher, A. (2022). Reconciliation and the intersections of Indigenous peoples and climate change — Literature review and recommendations. https://iportal.usask.ca/index.php?id=71678&t=details&having=1350465.

Kirmayer, L.J., Dandeneau, S., Marshall, E., Kahentonni Phillips, M., and Williamson, K.J. (2011). Rethinking resilience from Indigenous perspectives. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 56(2), 84–91. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/070674371105600203.

Moser, S. C., Meerow, S., Arnott, J., and Jack-Scott, E. (2019). The turbulent world of resilience: Interpretations and themes for transdisciplinary dialogue. Climatic Change, 153, 21-40. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-018-2358-0.

Standish R.J., Hobbs, R.J., Mayfield,M.M., Bestelmeyer, B.T., Suding, K.N., Battaglia, L.L., Eviner, V., Hawkes, C.V., Temperton, V.M., Cramer, V.A., Harris, J.A., Funk, J.L. and Thomas, P.A. (2014). Resilience in ecology: abstraction, distraction, or where the action is? Biological Conservation,177, 43–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.06.008.

Wale, J. (2022). Gitxsan Rez-ilience. Canadian Climate Institute. June 6, 2022. https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/gitxsan-rez-ilience/.