’Radical hope’ and rain: climate change and the mental health of Indigenous residents of northern Australia

Abstract

Objective: This paper considers the short, intermediate and longer term effects of climate change in relation to the mental health of Indigenous residents of northern Australia, and what these effects mean in terms of supporting adaptation and resilience.

Conclusions: Indigenous Australians have contended with change for millennia, with the drivers shifting from ecological to social pressures since European colonization. Climate change resulting from human activities introduces a new set of change forces which will in the short term be mediated by economic and social effects internationally.

Key words::

• climate change
• Indigenous people
• mental health
• Northern Australia