In the first U.S. communities to experience climate change firsthand, warmer weather and shifting weather patterns have hampered the ability of Alaska Native families to harvest the caribou, walrus and other subsistence foods they have relied on for more than a millennium, reports NPR’s The Salt. “The debate here isn’t over whether climate change is happening. For these rural communities, the question is whether they can continue to survive there,” the story says.
“Caribou used to migrate and winter in our area…We’ve been trying to go out and look for some and haven’t seen any,” says Percy Ballot Sr., a member of the Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska in Buckland, a rural area in Alaska.
On a state level, Alaska’s food insecurity rate is 14.4 percent, a fraction higher than the national rate, but some communities are struggling more than others. Western counties beside the Bering Sea have staggering food insecurity rates, as high as 26.7 percent. “There are hundreds of communities like this,” says Cara Durr, director of public engagement for Food Bank of Alaska. “You can’t just snap your fingers and send more food. It’s incredibly expensive to ship food out there.”
With a lack of subsistence foods, rural populations are turning to grocery goods, made pricier because stores are located in remote areas. Milk can routinely cost $10 a gallon or more; a container of juice can run $13; a loaf of bread can cost $6; and a box of cereal can run $8, says The Salt.