Chair: Xiomara Moore
COMMITTEE TOPICS:
Topic: Indigenous People and Climate Change
Imagine that you are a Saami reindeer herder. Imagine that on one negative 40 degrees day in Norway, you are out in a beautiful winter wonderland walking with your reindeer while searching for grazing lands with lichen, a favorite food of reindeers. As you move with your herd, you notice that Čuohki has developed over the entire land. Čuohki is an ice sheet formed by rain on open ground that afterwards freezes which make it extremely difficult for reindeers to dig underneath to eat the lichen. Sweden has experienced increased precipitation in winter and a larger proportion has fallen as rain. This means that more and more of the reindeer grazing locations are covered with Čuohki. As a result, reindeer herders including yourself now have to feed reindeers fodder instead of lichen. Other times the reindeers end up starving which results in the animal’s population decline. So what does this mean for you, fellow Saami reindeer herder? Well, this means that your community’s main food source, main economic source, and way of life is interrupted. Saami communities rely on reindeer for everything. So, the lessening amount of reindeer results in fewer materials for clothing like fur, less food, and less financial stability. There are multiple scenarios just like this one that can be used to describe how difficult life has been for Indigenous people since the increased climate change. As representatives of the international community, it is your task to consider these and other issues facing the indigenous people of the Earth in the wake of climate change. What sorts of relief efforts will the United Nations need to pursue? These and other such questions will be addressed in this committee.