A national organization called the Polaris Project takes young scientists into the field to study climate change in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. They flew participants to a site about 57 miles west of Bethel this year.
But last year, Jasmine Gil, a young scientist from Bethel who participated, said that the group marginalized her project because it relied on traditional knowledge. Now, the organization is trying to make amends.
Darcy Peter was one of the students who returned to the Polaris Project. She is Alaska Native from the Interior village of Beaver. Peter loves the Polaris Project and says that she had a good experience with the organization, but she also saw the fallout last year when fellow scientist Jasmine Gil told KYUK that the organization did not take her project seriously.
“I don’t like how things were handled. I definitely don’t,” Peter said.
Jasmine Gil is from Bethel, and her Yup’ik heritage guides how she conducts her research. She moved with her family to Sitka when she was 10 but spent her summers traveling between Kwethluk and Bethel. She was the only participant from the Y-K Delta last year.
Her project combined traditional Western science and Yup’ik knowledge to find out why lakes are disappearing in the region. In an interview last year, Gil said that some scientists at Polaris tried to persuade her to study something else.
“I said no, no, no, no… this is important to the people here and I want my work here to reflect where I come from; who I am and the people that I care for,” Gil said.
Gil declined to be interviewed for this story. She says that she is moving on from the controversy.
Sue Natali is one of the lead scientists of the Polaris Project, which is part of the Woods Hole Research Center based in Massachusetts. Natali was also present during the controversy last year and claims that at the time, she didn’t know about the tension between Gil and Polaris.
“I was very excited by her science project,” Natali said. “We provided a lot of helicopter time for her, and I really regret that she felt that way because she actually has a really awesome project and really good insight and that was not communicated to me. So as a project leader, what I do is express to everyone to try to communicate with me.”
Now a year later, Polaris is trying to repair the damage. Natali says that they have built in more one-on-one time with students and more group meetings to catch all concerns and potential problems.
Polaris researchers also hosted a community meeting in Bethel this year after their two-week research session ended. As part of the meeting, one of the Polaris Project scientists, Paul Mann, asked the crowd for suggestions.
“What are we missing? And what do you say to the next generation of scientists here about what should be looked at?” Mann asked.
Many in the crowd replied simply with this: interview the elders.
Peter agreed and added that Western scientists actually need to sit down with elders and the community to find out what they want to know. That way, scientists can also start forming relationships with people who have lived in the area for a long time.
“Science is like the black and white, and traditional knowledge is first hand observance; it’s looking at changes over time because we’ve been there for so long versus scientists who just go there, do a few studies, and then bail out,” Peter said.
Next year, Polaris researchers say that they will do two meetings in Bethel: one before the group heads out to do research, and another after it’s concluded. That way, the group can have more insight from the community and also spend more time building relationships.
