Atlin Workshop:
Preparing For Change –
Managing Climate Change Risks in the Atlin Area
Contents
- Introduction
- Community-based Climate Change Adaptation Planning
- Project Objectives and Outline
- Community Workshop
- Next Steps
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1: Participants
- Appendix 2: Results from Weekend Breakout Sessions
- Appendix 3: Agenda
- Appendix 4: Presentation by Tristan Pearce and Dr. James Ford
- Appendix 5: Presentation by Trevor Murdock and Katrina Bennett
Summary of Results and Key Findings
The risk assessment evaluation procedure was used for the Stakeholder Groups and the community workshop, thoroughly engaging community members to contribute their concerns and ideas. Because of high turn-out to all our meetings and workshops, the results from this process are considerable in their volume, detail and breadth.
Compiling and organizing the outcomes from this project meant that not all of the information gathered could be presented here in this report.
Please see Appendix 2 for a detailed summary of the outcomes from the weekend working group sessions.
Key Findings – Stakeholder Group
Stakeholder Group 1: Land Based Occupations and Traditions (Fishing, Hunting, Trapping, Watershed and Land-based issues, Culture, Health and Well-being)
Observed Changes
- Deer moving into the area
- More deer and moose, fewer caribou
- New insects
- Beetle killed trees, more leaf miners
- Bush becoming more lush
- Warmer winters
- Humidity levels are higher
- More snow, more rain
- No more dry hot summers
- No more reliable afternoon thundershowers
- No more long periods of cold winter weather – only short spurts
- Late lake freeze up, early thaw, unreliable ice conditions
- Ground holds more water, higher water tables
- Glaciers receding and glacial ponds expanding into lakes
- Creek flooding in spring seems higher
Vulnerabilities
- Forest fire around town or on road
- West Nile virus – far from hospitals
- New parasites / bugs / disease
- Isolation – if road gets damaged
- Trout in smaller lakes vulnerable to increased temperatures (not Atlin Lake)
- Fisheries having problems with flooding (nets)
- Poor economy
- Cut off from world of services
- Volunteer burn out
- Problems with business insurance not appropriate to Atlin
- Substance abuse and violence could spike
- Dependent on price of minerals, price of diesel
- Seasonal and foreign population
- Ageing population
- 3 full time employers – impossible to get people to come and stay
- Taku River Fisheries could be affected
Community Adaptive Capacity
- Resilience: We’re out here on our own
- Used to extreme weather
- Most people get their own firewood, can get water, and hunt and shear a moose – if they needed to
- Diverse skills
- Amazing volunteer based infrastructure
- Flexibility because we are unincorporated
- Three emergency response groups
- Attitude: “If Atlin needs it, Atlin does it.”
- Level of emergency dictates community capacity
Tools and Solutions
- We need better high-speed internet connection
- We need a better and widely known emergency response plan
- Communication: We have strength in our ability to spread information fast
- Carol needs someone to take over the weather station
- Dr. Maynard Miller’s climate and glacier studies is a great source of climate information
- More locally available climate data needed
- Monitoring of local changes needed
Key Findings – Local Economy Stakeholder Group
Stakeholder Group 2: Local Economy (Forestry, Mining, Tourism, Recreation, Local Businesses)
Observed Changes
- Wetter, snowier, rainier weather
- Spruce kill growing
- More environmental consciousness
- New insect species
- More wind, new wind direction (from SW to NW)
- Summers are colder, greyer and wetter
- Winters are warmer and wetter
- Years of increased forest fire smoke
- Ageing population – few young people
- Increase in mosquitoes
- A new kind of biting black fly that is much bigger
- New birds extending their range north
- Cougars and deer making inroads
- Harder to get out on lake (shorter more dangerous winter, windier summer)
- Tourists complaining about the wet weather (fewer Juneau tourists)
- Water tables are high
- Lake level has been higher (generally)
Vulnerabilities
- Forest Fire: Subdivisions especially at risk
- Accessibility: everything depends on that one road
- Isolation: Who will come to help us out?
- Strong winds mean downed power lines and trees damaging houses
- Risk of avalanche for the Adanac mine site
- Poor building construction means roofs caving in with increased snow load
- Docks and floatplanes: Lake level vulnerability with washed out breakwater (planes and boats having trouble at dock) bad for outfitters/pilots and economy
- School might close down due to low enrolment
- Real estate becoming unaffordable except to rich foreigners
- Insurance too high for outfitters / tourism operators / small businesses
- Unincorporated: No votes, no municipal money, strain on volunteers
- Oil prices going up / demand for wood
- Impossible to access bug-killed trees (no roads, too expensive)
- No funding to promote itself (Yukon taking down highway tourism signs off Alaska Highway)
- Provincial resource rules (stumpage fees) are prohibitive
Community Adaptive Capacity
- Community Pride
- Unincorporated: freedom, flexibility, versatility
- Gerhard: “If we want to get something done we do it ourselves or with our friends”
- Arts and Music Festival getting bigger. 1500 people – the whole town accommodates the festival
- Flexibility to adapt and respond because you don’t have to go through the levels of government
- New generation is environmentally literate
- Youth are being skilled in many outdoor skills, with the Rangers, Search and Rescue
- Resourcefulness, ideas, cooperation
- Varied skills, diverse past life experience
- Provincial resource rules (stumpage fees) are prohibitive (but they only visit twice a year and so who’s counting?)
- Everybody knows 5 different trades / has 5 sources of income
- Hydroelectric is a great asset
Tools and Solutions
- Use bug-killed wood
- Upgrade airstrip (Adanac mine has this in plans)
- Adanac avalanche monitoring is planned
- Increase renewable energy (in addition to hydroelectric)
- Should have network of satellite phones in case lines fall
- BC should change insurance policy for small towns
- Because of our success stories and ability to adapt, we can teach bigger cities, be an example
- Develop new tourism strategies
- Partner with each other more
Key Findings – Infrastructure and Planning Stakeholder Group
Stakeholder Group 3: Infrastructure and Planning (Micro-hydro Electricity, Energy, Highways, Sewage, Emergency Services, Buildings, Transportation)
Observed Changes
- Increased snowfall (4 roofs damaged this year)
- Rapid spring, flash flooding of Pine Creek
- No longer hot and sunny
- Increased humidity
- No more long cold winters
- Population is dropping (especially youth)
- The Warm Springs are cooling off
- Tourist operators start and then shut down
- More Europeans buying property
- Less trapping
- Rabbit cycles seem less pronounced
- New birds (morning doves, bobolink, redwing blackbirds, cowbirds, crows)
- New weird insects, a long wasp
- Algae blooms along shoreline in town
Vulnerabilities
- Volunteer burnout
- Mostly older people in community
- No school after grade 9 (breaks up families or forces relocation)
- More work in the winter to keep up with wood and shovelling
- Ageing bodies hurting with the shovelling demands
- Forest fire / spruce beetle
- Higher fuel costs are coming
- Stranded at end of road (if something happened to road)
- Septic leakage with higher runoff/precipitation
- Winter tourists face more risk in backcountry
- Solar radiation’s impact on satellite
Community Adaptive Capacity
- One of the best lake trout fishing lakes in the world
- Everything run by volunteers
- High environmental awareness
- Maynard Miller’s research
- Adanac mine will bring new people
- High level of education
- High awareness of issues
- People are starting to adopt energy efficiency
- Hydroelectric
Tools and Solutions
- Need to become even more self-sufficient, self-reliant
- Community Greenhouse
- Fix up / reinsulate / rebuild Atlin Recreation centre
- Need more developed emergency plan
- Need better high speed and better web economies / websites
- Need more cooperation / friendship / partnerships between FN and Atlinites
- Population should triple
- Need a decent hotel
- Let’s design Atlin virtual adventures video games virtual reality