Using Eco-Cultural Dependency Webs in Risk Assessment and Characterization of Risks to Tribal Health and Cultures
Author:
Stuart G. Harris and Barbara Harper
Date Published:
2000
Description:
Peoples and communities, especially indigenous com- munities, are forced to deal with an increasingly complex set of environmental, social, cultural, and economic problems related to pollution. It is important to use evaluation tools that reflect the values and perspectives of the affected peoples, and which can evaluate risks and impacts to the natural resource base upon which we all depend. Evaluation tools, such as risk assessment, are being applied to spatio-temporal systems and lifestyles for which they were not designed, so new integrating tools are needed to bridge the gap between narrow sets of endpoints and western perspectives, on the one hand, and a much broader set of end- points and more holistic indigenous perspectives on the other hand. The perspectives and even the necessity to account for traditional Native American lifestyles have gone unnoticed in classical environmental planning and risk assessment methods. If tribal rights and resources are affected, one way to ensure that those tools reflect the appropriate values is to redesign the risk tools using traditional environmental management prin- ciples. For example, Native American communities are insepa- rable from their lands and resources, so evaluation of their risks from contamination must integrate human physiological and mental health, ecological health, socio-economic health, and cultural and spiritual health within a single framework. This does not mean simply adding a quality-of-life component and calling it cultural risk, or using an exposure scenario that re- flects additional routes of exposures. Rather, it means begin- ning the assessment by understanding the entire eco-cultural system (people and biota interlocked in a co-adapted system of behaviors and ecologies that is sustainable over time but which is now severely strained even without the addition of contami- nation). This paper provides some suggestions for improving risk assessment through the use of dependency webs that are drawn to represent the entire eco-cultural system that is at risk, and therefore that identify more consequences of environmental contamination. Dependency webs help identify the resources, uses, functions, and services associated with a resource or area that is at risk from contamination. They also help to structure the analysis so that all the elements important to the affected community are included in the risk assessment and not deferred to the risk management phase or omitted altogether. Finally, the ethics of risk assessments (their use and misuse) will be improved as information becomes more complete and transparent.
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