Climate Change and Health: Impacts on Remote Indigenous Communities in Northern Australia.
Climate Change and Health: Impacts on Remote Indigenous Communities in Northern Australia. Report
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Paper
- Author(s): Green, Donna
- Published: 2006
- Publisher: CSIRO
Abstract: Climate projections for northern Australia include higher temperatures, more extreme rainfall, sea-level rise and more intense cyclones within the next 50 years. Consequently, long sections of coastline, river deltas, wetland areas and off-shore islands will be susceptible to erosion and saltwater inundation, while inland areas are likely to have more bushfires, dust storms, extremes in temperatures, flooding and droughts. Many of these biophysical impacts have direct and indirect effects on the health and well-being of people living in affected regions, especially those who are sensitive to environmental change and who, for various reasons, have a low capacity to adapt. Such people include thousands of Indigenous Australians living in outstations scattered across northern Australia from the Kimberley, through to Arnhem land, the central deserts, far north Queensland and the Torres Strait. These communities are disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of biophysical change due to a number of factors. Many Indigenous people living in remote areas have a heightened sensitivity to ecosystem change due to the close connections that exist for them between the health of their ‘country’, their physical and mental well-being and the maintenance of their cultural practices. A biophysical change manifested in a changing ecosystem has, for example, the potential to affect their mental health in a way not usually considered in non-Indigenous societies. A lack of basic infrastructure, lower social and economic status and existing chronic health problems also contribute to many of these communities having lower adaptive capacity. Even though Indigenous Australians living in remote communities have been recognised as highly vulnerable in the international climate impacts literature, there is little domestic research that considers their specific vulnerability which could be used to guide policy makers. This paper reviews evidence of the likely health impacts for these communities and provides material to inform adaptation strategies.
- Urls: http://www.cmar.csiro.au/e-print/open/greendl_2006.pdf Available from