Standard Presentation 2024 Australian Marine Sciences Association Annual Meeting combined with NZMSS

Assessing climate change impacts on Traditional Owner cultural values (#168)

LARISSA HALE 1 , Karin Gerhardt 2 , Scott Heron 3 , Jon Day 3
  1. Yuku Baja Muliku Landowner & Reserves Ltd , Cooktown, Queensland, Australia
  2. Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Townsville, QUEENSLAND, Australia
  3. James Cook University, CVI, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

Yuku Baja Muliku Traditional Owners have been collaborating with the developers of the Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) to investigate the potential of the CVI to assess the impacts of climate change upon values of significance to them. The CVI is a rapid and systematic tool, initially developed to assess the vulnerability of World Heritage to climate change. Approaching the CVI from an Indigenous perspective was the first attempt anywhere to trial the process in this way. For the initial workshop, the YBM knowledge holders chose 12 attributes (values, processes, or protocols), that were storyboarded to highlight expected impacts. For each attribute, the workshop identified an historic perspective (i.e., what was the value/process like ~100 years ago), a contemporary perspective (i.e., what is happening today) and the expected future perspective about the value/process. Through an ongoing workshop series the collaboration has produced an end to end process to assess the impacts of climate change on cultural values and identify significant climate stressors on Country, as well as an adaptive management plan to mitigate future potential impacts.