How to make climate change research relevant for Indigenous communities in Torres Strait, Australia

Abstract

Several Torres Strait communities have significant infrastructure and sacred sites located only a few metres above sea level. As a consequence, these areas are vulnerable to erosion due to the projected increase in storm surge intensity caused by climate change. Common sense suggests that Islanders would welcome new scientific research about how climate change might affect them, in order to understand the significance of these impacts and the timeframes involved. However, one leader has taken a seemingly counterintuitive stance, and has refused to let new climate research occur. We explore why this position was taken, and the implications of this decision for ongoing scientific research. In order to carry out this analysis, we provide a contextual background by assessing Islanders' recent experience with scientific researchers, and the response of policy-makers to it. We find that despite a clearly documented problem with “top-down” decision-making, this process remains. In this instance, we find that there is a systemic lack of collaboration with Islanders to allow them to prioritise their concerns, and a lack of adequate resources to allow them to build their resilience to climate impacts. We conclude that only through a genuine collaborative approach to climate adaptation can activities be properly developed, prioritised and undertaken.

Keywords:

• Indigenous
• climate impacts
• adaptation
• Indigenous research methodology
• Torres Strait

View correction statement:

CORRIGENDUM

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the generous contributions of time and knowledge from Warraber community members that formed the base for this research. In addition, we would like to thank our two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback, which has much improved this paper. This research was conducted with the support of funding from the Adaptation Research Network for Marine Biodiversity and Resources (CO), and from the Australian Government's Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility (DG).

Notes

“Warraber is taking a stand, and will not accept any more research for Climate Change” (Torres News 2010 ).

Ethical approval was received from the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of New South Wales, approval numbers: 09024 and 10139.

CRC are major federal government initiatives, established with the aim of delivering specific outcomes that respond to end-user needs.