Preserving Our Place: Isle de Jean Charles

This article by Chantel Comardelle, Tribal executive secretary of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe, is from the fall 2020 edition of the Nonprofit Quarterly is part of a series of works on the subject of environmental justice and Indigenous communities in the United States

Excerpts and SPOTLIGHT views presented below

Tyler Domingue via UNSPLASH

“Isle de Jean Charles is a small ridge of land in southern Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. “The Island,” as locals call it, is home to the Isle de Jean Charles (IDJC) Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe of Louisiana. The IDJC Tribe settled the Island in the early 1800s, having been pushed into “uninhabitable” lands by European settler colonialism, slavery, and social inequality.”

Long before climate change challenged the IDJC Tribe’s homeland, systemic discrimination and racism towards Indigenous people challenged their universal rights.

The IDJC Tribe adapted to life on a secluded island, accessible only by boat, by living solely off the land and surrounding waters. The Tribal children were denied public education until 1952 even though a missionary school was within reach on the mainland by the 1930s and the Baptist Mission built a church on the Island, which was used as a school in the 1940s.

When the “Island Road” connecting the Island to Pointe-aux-Chênes was built in 1953, a whole new world opened to the IDJC Tribe. However, the road crossed the marshland, leaving it wide open to erosion and flooding.

Since 1955, the Island has sustained a 98 percent erosion rate, contributing to floods and hurricanes that have destroyed some homes. Although the road was restored and elevated in 2011, and the Tribe was told this would permanently fix the problem, over the past 3 three years, the road has regularly flooded due to increasing extreme weather events, particularly where the Gulf is vulnerable.

The Island is now unable to sustain life for the entire IDJC Tribe, because of climate change. Climate change impacts like sea level rise, environmental disasters and gradual sinking of the land due to levees on the Mississippi River.

Tribal members have trickled off the island due to loss of homes, work and repeated flooding that began as early as 1974 with Hurricane Carmen. Gradually, there’s been an uptick in departures, with the biggest departure in 2002 when over 50 families left following devastation from Hurricane Lili.

The IDJC Tribe is now separated, displaced and losing their way of life. Oral histories, traditions and knowledge passed on for generations is also at stake.

Much like it is for refugees, most of whom live out the rest of their lives in exile. And much like it is for so many places in the world like the Lake Chad basin, for example, where nomadic ways of life are being disturbed by conflict and climate change and resulting displacement impacts separation and loss of that way of life.

For the IDJC Tribe, hope for solutions has dwindled over the years from many missteps and the state of Louisiana’s slow and improper implementation of the federal Housing and Urban Development National Disaster Resilience Grant, awarded in 2016, and meant to include the Tribe’s envisioned Tribal Resettlement Plan.

In the latest amendment, the state has made it clear that the IDJC Tribe would no longer be involved in any part of the grant nor receive any funds.

Now the Tribe has invested in “Preserving Our Place,” a movement to preserve the Island and the Tribe’s long legacy of traditions, culture and history. The IDJC Tribal Council approved the first Tribal Museum Policy and will establish a Tribal Museum and Culture Center, community gardens, storytelling activities, craft demonstrations and historical exhibits are just the tip of the iceberg.

But first must come efforts to ensure the Island and the IDJC Tribe does not erode, and they can’t do that alone.

“Thinking of the vast undertaking, for guidance—ironically—I look to the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, whose Preamble begins, “We the People.” In order to fully accomplish our goal, we, the people of the Tribe, the community, and the country must ensure that the communities facing climate migration and resettlement are fully resourced. Communities dealing with these grave climate conditions need everyone to rally behind their vision to ensure the preservation of their place, and come alongside them in solidarity” - Chantel Comardelle

Chantel says that solidarity should include everyone from the federal government to philanthropy, pointing to the Government Accountability Office July 2020 report recommending that “Congress consider establishing a federally-led pilot program to help communities interested in relocation.”

Chantel says the report accurately covers the IDJC Tribe’s resettlement process, clearly states that there are many complex problems with the current resettlement plan.

The IDJC Tribe needs support and suggests many ways in which we can all help. We can follow their story and progress at www.isledejeancharles.com, and on Facebook. If you’re covering a news story about this, she suggests contacting community leaders to learn of the most pressing needs since many stories do not represent the real picture.

Most importantly, meaningful financial support and capacity-building grants are crucial, especially to get the Preserving Our Place project initiated. As far as in-kind support, their most immediate needs are archival space, equipment, funding and a building. (NonProfit Quarterly)

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Charikar Flood Survivors Mourn Dead as Afghanistan Grows Increasingly Vulnerable to Climate Change

Photo by EJ Wolfson via UNSPLASH

After the August 26 flood, 129 people have already been found dead under the rubble and mud and the town is destroyed. Flooding and natural disasters are not new to Afghanistan or Pakistan, but experts warn they could increase with climate change altering weather patterns. Worse yet, both countries are ranked high as vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and among the countries least prepared to deal with the effects. 

The UNDP’s Chief of Livelihoods and Resilience warns “climate change, conflict, displacement, and urbanization are linked, climate change is a risk multiplier in the complex socio-economic and political context of Afghanistan.”

So far Pakistan’s monsoon rains this year have killed 233 people, and destroyed more than 1,300 homes. Karachi usually would receive five inches of rain from July to September, but this year it has seen more than 19 inches already. 

The Karachi head of Pakistan’s meteorological department says the effects of climate change are already being seen and felt. 

Land and housing pressures from above average birth rates are already being felt, and if political negotiations go well, Afghan refugee returnees from Iran and Pakistan will further increase those pressures. 

Thus far, Pakistan’s national climate change adaptation plans have been sidelined by a lack of money and capacity. (Telegraph)

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Latest Bangladeshi Floods Impact Millions - Yes, Let’s Talk about the Injustice

Ahmed Hasan via UNSPLASH

Government estimates and satellite data reveal as much as 24 to 37 percent of the country is submerged, a million homes impacted, 4.7 million people affected and 54 people have died, mostly children, in rains that are expected to continue through the middle of August.

The NY Times reports it’s too soon to know what role climate change plays but Bangladesh has already seen a pattern of more severe and frequent floods stemming from the Brahmaputra River, and scientists expect things to only get worse in the years ahead. 

It’s a tale of suffering we see too often in the media, but this time, it’s so heartening to note the welcome emphasis on responsibility and justice: 

“This is one of the most striking inequities of the modern era. Those who are least responsible for polluting Earth’s atmosphere are among those most hurt by its consequences. The average American is responsible for 33 times more planet-warming carbon dioxide than the average Bangladeshi.”

From Vanuatu sinking into the Pacific and drought in the Horn of Africa, inequity is the focus, when taking into account the world’s richest 10 percent are responsible for 40 percent of the global environmental damage, while the poorest 10 percent account for less than 5 percent. (NY Times) 

Inequity is exactly the point and framing this as a justice issue needs to be front and center in the conversation, just as we say in our PERSPECTIVES Feature below:

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Bangladesh Opening ‘Climate Refugee’ Complex for 4,500 Families

Al Amin Khan via UNSPLASH

In what is being billed the world’s largest climate refugee housing scheme, 20 new housing blocks opened last Thursday and will house 650 families in the initial phase, with more under construction. 

Many of the new residents are from the Bay of Bengal island of Kutubdia, which is now 40% underwater. One of the first recipients was Jobadia Begum, who lost several family members during the country’s devastating 1991 cyclone that destroyed much of the island and killed 138,000 people. 

Many of those displaced in that cyclone have since been living in a slum housing 40,000 outside of Cox’s Bazar airport, which is also vulnerable to flooding during high tide. (AFP)

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Micronesia ‘Climate Refugees’ Increasingly Relocate to Oregon

Marek Okon via UNSPLASH

Those following climate change news might already know that the 600 islands comprising the Federated States of Micronesia are waging a battle with climate change: mainly rising sea levels. What many may not know is that, outside of Hawaii, Portland is one of the most popular places for Micronesians to relocate in the United States. Whether it be in search of better prospects, reconnections, a changing environment at home or other, many of these new Portland residents worry about the seas overtaking their ancestral homes.

No one seems to know for sure where the connection to Oregon began, but some Micronesians believe, as is usual, a small group of elders who attended Eastern Oregon University might be the diaspora connection. 

Now in beautiful testimonials, these Micronesians in Portland speak wistfully of a life once spent on beautiful Pacific Ocean islands and how many, not unlike refugees we have formally resettled all over the world, struggle to maintain their cultural heritage in their newfound homes. 

Dexter Moluputo, who grew up on the island Houk, measuring just over one square mile, says life was spent fishing and growing crops, just as his ancestors had for centuries. He says “over there you don’t work for money. Just to eat.” 

Now thousands of miles away in a climate and culture vastly different from his home, he thinks longingly of foods found only at home and the precarious plight of his homeland, which could soon become uninhabitable, not only because of rising seas, but because stronger typhoons have spread salt all over the island, rendering crop cultivation almost impossible. 

Berely Mack from the Micronesian island of Kapingamarangi says he returned to his home island three years ago in shock, dismay and the undeniable proof of the impacts of climate change when he experienced the water levels at higher ground. 

These Pacific Islanders worry for their homelands, worry for their generational lost heritage and the steady sense of disorientation that has come with the loss of living by and off the ocean in this enforced need to transplant roots. But many are forging ahead, bringing their food, culture and way of life with them to their new homes, while worries for their ancestral homes rise, just like its seas. (Portland Tribune) 

Note:

Although the media and this journalist uses the term ‘climate refugee’, as do we but for different reasons, including to provoke a conversation along lines of protection, justice and equality - see “The Problem” - these Micronesians are not ‘refugees’ in a legal sense since climate change or environmental degradation is not a protected refugee ground in international law. Regardless of terminology though, this article more than demonstrates what is at stake, and beyond forced displacement, as with all displaced people, including refugees, what is lost when one is forced into a life of exile from one’s homeland.

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Climate Change Would Cause 14 Cuban Settlements to Disappear by 2050

Alex Meier via UNSPLASH

A study conducted by Cuban scientists has found rising sea levels in Cuba could displace as many as 41,300 people over the next 30 years. The scientists studied data collected from Cuba’s meteorological coastal stations and the database on tropical cyclones of the US National Hurricane Center, among others, calculating how far the sea would advance in the event of flooding caused by strong winds in four coastal settlements: Punta Alegre, Playa La Herradura, Gibara and Baracoa.

Lying right in the path of Caribbean hurricanes with hundreds of kilometers of low-lying coastal populations, Cuba regards itself at greater risk to climate change. After Hurricane Irma devastated parts of Cuba in 2018, Cuba found renewed commitment to implement a long-discussed 100-year plan known as Tarea Vida or project life to protect itself from climate change but a lack of investment in the plan is then showed how little progress had been made. 

The project is designed with the intent to increase the resilience of vulnerable communities and bans construction of new homes in threatened coastal areas, relocates populations deemed to be living in risky sea-level rise areas, plans to overhaul the agricultural system away from saltwater-contaminated areas, shore up coastal defenses and restore degraded habitats. 

After Hurricane Irma, 40 families in Palmarito - the first population relocations inland - took place in October 2017. While other communities may not need to be moved for some time to come, after Irma, Cuba embarked on a coastal community education campaign on climate change, which many having lived through, understood firsthand. (On Cuba News & Science Mag)

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