• Energy Research
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Climate change has been widely recognised as one of the most urgent and growing threats to natural and cultural heritage in the twenty-first century, and the indelible impact of humanity has led to the definition of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Indigenous peoples are disproportionately affected by natural and human-induced changes to the environment. Their vulnerability is exacerbated by centuries of cultural and territorial disenfranchisement within settler-colonial nations. This dissertation aims at understanding Indigenous perceptions of heritage in the face of climate change and its intersection with the impacts of settler- colonialism. It analyses how these on-the-ground perceptions can, in turn, inform heritage organisations and contribute to safeguarding the many facets of tangible and intangible Indigenous heritage for future generations in the Anthropocene. This is accomplished through a comparative, transnational case study of two communities each from the Dehcho First Nations in the Northwest Territories, Canada, and the Aymara and Quechua peoples in northern Chile. I use a multi-method approach consisting of semi-structured interviews, oral histories and participant observation. The data is complemented by environmental and heritage legislation and grey literature at multiple organisational scales for both case studies. Three lines of enquiry are explored through an applied comparative thematic analysis: i) the perceptions of climate change and associated land loss/change among Indigenous groups and how this impacts each group’s notions of challenges to its cultural identity; ii) the intersection of the effects of post- colonialism, ongoing industrial activities and climate change on the intergenerational transmission of ancestral knowledge and notions of place attachment; and iii) how international, national and regional political and sociocultural rhetoric on environmental and heritage conservation affect local, grassroots considerations for safeguarding heritage. The similarities and contrasts of the Dehcho First Nations, Aymara and Quechua experiences of climate change across the North-South divide are related from the grassroots to arrive at redefining heritage practices in the Anthropocene. The results demonstrate that decolonising heritage is not only necessary, but that this decolonisation depends on building and actively engaging in intercultural empathy through the global threat of climate change. In order to understand how Indigenous practices, places, and items are valorised—attributed value—as heritage in the face of climate change, one must empathise with the cultural loss that exists in the temporal and cognitive spaces between Indigenous individuals’ moments of nostalgic reference and today.

Boreal forests hold 32% of the world’s terrestrial organic matter and are continually disturbed by biotic and abiotic events. These disturbances are especially important since they facilitate the redistribution of nutrients within and between ecosystems, which can alter resource use and productivity. Yet how various types of disturbances, both individually and in combination, impact the overall resource balance of northern forests remains poorly understood. This thesis aims to advance our understanding of forest disturbances as drivers of forest resource balances, primarily through shifts in carbon, to better facilitate management of forests under climate change. Chapter 1 reviews current knowledge on forest disturbances and cross- ecosystem linkages. It also provides a summary of current gaps in our understanding of disturbances as drivers of forest function and possible downstream effects. Chapter 2 explores how disturbance history influences long-term carbon balance in boreal forests. Theory predicts that disturbances will increase with climate change but how the order and timing of multiple disturbance events will impact ecosystem function remains unresolved. Chapter 3 extends our understanding of forest carbon balance by asking how different disturbance types change the phenology and surface reflectance of boreal forests. Understanding how single disturbance events change growing season length and radiative forcing of forests can help predict potential feedbacks of forest health on climate warming. Chapter 4 tests how outbreaks of defoliating insects alter biogeochemical cycling from land to receiving waters through the consumption of foliage and subsequent release of nutrient-rich waste. Forests typically provide a pulse of nutrients to nearby waters in autumn when leaves are shed but insects disrupt this pattern by changing the timing, quantity, and quality of resource transfers. Chapter 5 traces terrestrial nutrients within lakes and asks if they can promote productivity in zooplankton communities. Finally, Chapter 6 discusses the main findings of the thesis and ends with possible directions for future research.