TOPIC 'Environment' on Jan 27, 2009 (CET)
Aborigines May Be The Worst Hit Victims Of Climate Change
A recent report in the Medical Journal of Australia indicates that the country’s outback Aborigines may be the hardest hit victims of the global environmental climate change. The reasons given include the fact that aborigines live in such a remote community that the higher weather temperatures will most likely cause more illness and disease. The changing of their environment will also cause a new level of distress.
The possible fate of the aborigines is heightened by the disadvantages they already experience, insofar as they don’t have adequate housing or public services, and they don’t have adequate medical care. Some experts also acknowledge that their difference in cultural beliefs could play a large role in creating indirect impacts of climate change as the aborigines relate their health and wellbeing to that of the landscape of the country. Not only would their physical health be susceptible to higher risks of diseases, such as dengue fever, the report states, but their spiritual health will be influenced by the harm caused to their ancestral lands by climate change.
Aborigines were Australia’s first inhabitants but their population numbers and living conditions have deteriorated since 1788 when the first British settlers arrived and changed the landscape, much the same as the situation with the Europeans and Native Americans in North America. Aborigines now have only a population of approximately 470,000 out of 21 million Australian inhabitants. They experience much higher rates of suicide, health problems, and infant mortality than the rest of the country’s residents. Many are forced to live in subsidized “camps” where there is a very high rate of unemployment, alcoholism, and violence.
The problems of the aborigines will be complicated by climate change as they see ecosystems change, along with Earth’s normal life and growth cycles which will experience disruption in their patterns. They will feel as though the country is not being looked after properly as their ancestors would have wished. These feelings will create more social tension and unrest, thereby creating more health problems as well.
Sherry Irvin
on behalf of the
BascoTec Internet Limited
Technologie Park 13
33100 Paderborn
Germany
