Talk:Climate change and indigenous peoples

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2020 and 30 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Bbakkal, Rnakovsk, Eb20, Ikigamwa, James Iversen, Jkwasser, Ethuffma, I Have No Authority, Gheraly.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 11 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wilentja. Peer reviewers: J3nn!f3rros3, Gabby223, Shadamss.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Actors?
Why does this article refer to indigenous people as "actors"? Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 22:43, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I changed instances of "actors" to "peoples" or "persons". Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 00:55, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Adding to info on North America and introduction
Removed “vulnerable population” in opening paragraph  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaymaranke (talk • contribs) 00:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I've added some more specifics to the introduction paragraph and plan to add to the description of governance by adding information on the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCCC) and possibly including some more specifics within the subsection of North America. Obee14 (talk) 19:53, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Ive added some more info about a specific animal that is effected by climate change that in turn effects the Inuit people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaymaranke (talk • contribs) 00:35, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

One thing that would benefit this article would be a chart on population by environmental activity, I believe this section could benefit from it. Rnakovsk (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions for the article
I think that the article and the topic are very useful. I like to see arguing how climate change impacts all indigenous people around the world. But I think that the lead section of the article needs to be defined well. Also, it needs to be improvements and adding current data and citations. Besides, I have found some misused words; then, I edited them in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbakkal (talk • contribs) 23:13, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the article could use a little more data. A specific section that I believe could use this is the Disproportionate impact of climate change on Indigenous Peoples section. With this being the first section of the article, it needs more information for the readers. It would be helpful to look into potential cases and case studies surrounding this subject to help bring in those extra references. Overall, I think that with a few small modifications with more data would provide a concrete article. Rnakovsk (talk) 22:06, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree, examples would be helpful.--Twilight Tinker (talk) 18:15, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions
The lead section needs more content, including an introduction to the proceeding subsections. I appreciate how the article is organized overall and how the impacts are broken down by region. The beginning paragraph on “impacts” is somewhat confusing, however. The statement is framed around the idea (at least it comes across this way to the reader) that indigenous people will be disproportionally affected by climate change solely due to their identities and belief systems. I would suggest rewriting this paragraph. Furthermore, each "region" section needs more content and should be more focused on and highlight the impacts indigenous people are experiencing in each region. Currently, the information is very generalized. I would suggest adding results from case studies and perhaps including a telecoupled perspective/framework for each region, if possible. The section on the benefits of indigenous participation is a good addition. I might suggest adding a section on indigenous responses/solutions to climate change, or something along those lines. There are not enough references, as there are only nine for the entire article. The bulk of what is included in the “impacts” section, for example, comes from one source. Adding more sources will help you expand your sections and allow more room for specifics and case studies. Jkwasser (talk) 19:19, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

The edits which were added were good in terms of organization, I think that sectioning it into continents was good but like some others on the talk page mentioned, I think that there could be improvement with the references by adding more reliable citations. I also think that going more in-depth within the current categories, could be beneficial, rather than focusing on indigenous groups on each continent in general. Maybe creating subcategories under each continent that focus a little bit more specifically on one region and the groups in that region and their experiences with climate change, would allow for more expanding on certain topics. I would suggest adding a section on the Maoli People of Hawaii under the North America section and then expand on ways which their community has been affected like changes in the places where they can live, changes in food or farming systems and other changes in lifestyle which are connected to climate change. In terms of edits I have made, I plan on going just through and make some clarifying edits wherever needed and fix grammar mistakes if there are there. Overall, the work done on this article is good and the page is improving a lot from what I can see! Ikigamwa (talk) 00:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I finished the introduction feeling a little confused. The description of indigenous peoples’ experiences was a bit too broad. While I think you are justified in saying that “indigenous people have a myriad of experiences,” I think you need to provide some examples so readers can develop a more clear understanding around your claims. Moreover, there are no citations in your opening paragraph. You need to provide citations, even for generalized claims. I also think you should include a definition of western science. Otherwise, readers will all rely on their own, slightly different, and independently-formed definition. I have linked the phrase to the Wikipedia page for “Philosophy of Science” because what used to be a Wikipedia for Western Science redirects to there. Lastly, you have a lot of really long sentences, packed with information, in your first paragraph. You should break these up and play around with your sentence structure. I think this would greatly improve the clarity of your opening paragraph. You begin the impacts section by stating that multiple reports show climate change disproportionately impacts indigenous people but you only provide two citations throughout the entire section. I really think you need more than that. I liked that you broke down the effects of indigneous peoples by region. This allows you to offer more specific and varied information without overwhelming the reader. However, I think you need to make the first sentence of each section about how climate change impacts the indigenous communities. Right now, each section is a jumble of facts, which make it difficult for the reader to decipher the direct impact on indigenous peoples. Again, look at your grammar, use of verb tenses, and sentence structure throughout. Finally, and most importantly, you have to cite more sources. Currently, each section relies almost entirely- if not entirely- on one source. You need at least three sources per section to establish the credibility behind your claims. I think referencing climate activists from indigenous communities in the “Climate Actions of Indigenous Peoples” section is a great idea. These offer really interesting and specific examples. You should consider talking about specific movements that indigenous communities have led or been significant forces to better demonstrate how they have protected the environment and improved water quality. I Have No Authority (talk) 00:27, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I would first like to point out that the article you chose to edit was very bareboned and needed a lot of work, (well done for undertaking a hard assignment). That being said, I believe there is still a lot of work to do to make this a high-level article in terms of Wikipedia standards. I just finished reading "I have No Authority" feedback regarding your introduction and I agree with his analysis. I was confused as to what exactly this article was truly about. Most people on Wikipedia do not read the entirety of an article, therefore the introduction is the most essential piece. The intro was too brief and too broad. You should include examples of indigenous people fighting climate change and the effects it has on their well being and society along with a brief summary of what you will cover in your article. One thing I really liked about this article was your organization of section "Disproportionate impact of climate change on Indigenous Peoples". You broke this section down by region and this really helped me navigate the article to a better extent (this is also something I have initiate on my article, "Environmental Racism"). One thing I did notice is that a lot of your sections did not have images. I have added images with captions to a few of your sections, however, a rule of thumb is that every section of an article should have an image/map. All in all, you have picked a hard article to edit because there is a lot of work needed to be done. But from the work you have done, you have made this article exponentially better. Good job. James Iversen (talk) 02:35, 27 March 2020 (UTC)jiversen

Overall, this was a difficult topic and you guys have performed extensive research, so bravo to that! There are some language choices throughout the article that are not concise and, in some cases, don’t make sense. Some claims are not backed by references. The phrase “indigenous peoples” is capitalized in some places but not in others. The introduction provides a well-done brief outline of who indigenous people are and their population size and distribution. The introductory sentence to the section “disproportionate impact of climate change on indigenous peoples” mentions that these groups of people are affected more than the rest of the world by rising seas, floods, droughts, and storms. However, the article does not go into more depth about this. There should be a section on each of these impacts, possibly as sub-sections for each of the different groups of indigenous people outlined. The section about indigenous people in Asia could also use some expansion.

Recommended sources
FYI, the IPCC has some excellent report sections on indigenous people that are not summarized anywhere on Wikipedia, as far as I know. It would be really great to summarize them here. If you search these reports for the word "indigenous" you'll find plenty.


 * Special report on global warming of 1.5 degrees: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
 * Special report on the oceans and cryosphere : https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/

Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 21:22, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/11-arctic-species-affected-climate-change This is a goog article for citing different animals in the Arctic that are being effected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaymaranke (talk • contribs) 00:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions for reviewers
Hi all, it's great to see that students are working as a team on this article. I haven't yet had time to review the changes in depth, but I'd just like to flag some areas that I think warrant a double-check:

1) Unfortunately, the Report of the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change." Proceedings of Indigenous People's Global Summit on Climate Change, Alaska, Anchorage. does not qualify as being a reliable source for factual information because the statements made in a summit are not peer-reviewed or subject to editorial scrutiny. Also, that source is from 2009 and things have changed a lot in the past ten years.

2) Please make sure every statement relates to climate change, not to other environmental issues such as the issues around extractive industries in general.

3) Make sure statements of opinion, such as "climate governance would benefit from" are explicitly attributed to a person or group that has expressed that opinion. I.e. name names in the text, not just in the footnotes.

4) When talking about a continent, avoid using a source that examines only one country and using that as being representative of the entire continent. The IPCC sources that I recommend above talk about trends across wide geographical regions - if you use global sources like the IPCC for a Wikipedia article that's global in scope like this one, the writing will be much easier. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 21:43, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi ! Thank you for all your suggestions/corrections, they've all been very helpful and I'm working on getting to addressing all of them. I just wanted to get some clarification on this point. If I'm correctly understanding what you're saying is that we should still include specific examples of individual countries in the different regional sections but make it clear they're not representative of the continent as a whole? Because some of the recommendations for improvement of the article are to add more specificity in what particular Indigenous groups are doing to combat climate change but at the same time we don't want to generalize and ignore the variations in impacts and actions taken by different groups. Thanks again for your input, we're all new to this so it's really helpful. Obee14 (talk) 16:41, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi Obee14. I haven't had time to follow the recent developments in this article, but I'll try to clarify what I can.
 * The best way to go about writing a section about a large region is to find sources that talk about the entire region, and mention the same countries that those sources mention. If you give a lot of weight to facts that are not representative, and fail to give enough weight to facts that are representative, the article will have what we call a due weight problem. If you add a disclaimer that the facts given are not representative, that's helpful, but it doesn't solve the due weight problem. The only practical way to solve it in a broad-scope article is to use broad-scope sources.
 * In general, at Wikipedia we keep the use of examples to a minimum, contrary to what others are advising on this Talk page. In an encyclopedia, we DO talk about generalities and overall trends.
 * I'm concerned that this article might be going in the direction of becoming a list of things that Indigenous activists are doing to fight climate change. That's not what Wikipedia is for. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 02:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * In general, at Wikipedia we keep the use of examples to a minimum, contrary to what others are advising on this Talk page. In an encyclopedia, we DO talk about generalities and overall trends.
 * I'm concerned that this article might be going in the direction of becoming a list of things that Indigenous activists are doing to fight climate change. That's not what Wikipedia is for. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 02:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm concerned that this article might be going in the direction of becoming a list of things that Indigenous activists are doing to fight climate change. That's not what Wikipedia is for. Clayoquot (talk &#124; contribs) 02:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

3.3) There is tons of opinion in this piece. There is valuable info but there is a lot of uptalk when describing things. Try to make sure everything is a fact and you aren't using big descriptive words just to make the article sound more scholarly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaymaranke (talk • contribs) 00:43, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Fantastic job on this article. I appreciate how thorough your case studies are and the reality that you present to readers. I think this article does a great job of highlighting the specific needs and impacts affecting these vulnerable communities. My only recommendation would be to dig a little bit more into the subject as a whole. You evaluate the case studies well, but it may be helpful to do a whole system evaluation at the beginning. Looking at more information regarding definitions, history, implications, influences, etc. If you build out that introductory information, then this Wikipedia entry will be golden! Great work! Eb20 (talk) 00:17, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Oops I fixed the "orphan" problem before I noticed students were working on this - should have left you to figure it out - still now I'll leave you to figure out how I fixed it. Also you could consider adding an article description.Chidgk1 (talk) 20:10, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Moving more of the content about Australia
I agree with the recent moving by User:CarolineMyattHarding of some content that was under the Australia example to the article Climate change in Australia which now has a section on Australian Aborigines and should be the main place where the bulk of the content is located. I proposed to only leave one or maximum two paragraphs here (but not sub-headings) and rather refer people to the other article if they want to know more. Once this article on "Climate change and indigenous peoples" gets build up with more examples from other countries it could become quite large, so any country example that already has a sub-article should then be kept short, in my opinion (rather than take up too much space compared to other country examples). What do you think? EMsmile (talk) 06:32, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I have moved more of the content now to Climate change in Australia as I had proposed a month ago. EMsmile (talk) 07:33, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Moved some country level details to CCC articles, used excerpt function
I feel that some of the very detailed information about particular groups of people is better off in the CCC articles (climate change in country X). Therefore, I have moved some content to Climate change in Canada and Climate change in the United States and replaced it with the excerpt function. The beauty of this is that the same information does appear in two articles now but it only needs to be updated and maintained in one place, not in two. The same could be done now for the Australia section (and others). EMsmile (talk) 04:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

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