Environmental Health Impact on Indigenous Communities
“Some day the Earth will weep, she will beg for her life, she will cry with tears of blood. You will make a choice if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you will die too.”
-John Hollow Horn, Oglala Lakota
‘Indigenous’ means native or aboriginal but still, every time we use the term indigenous communities it seems we are referring to outlanders. The term seems like a label, which is made to typecast the people of the land as different, as outcastes but unfortunately we, those who have shifted to big cities and adapted to the urbanization are considered the ‘citizens’ of our nations and those who were strong enough not to give away their beliefs, to know from the beginning the importance of their land and nature are labelled as different, they are first tribes or indigenous communities of the nation and then anything else. This goes without saying that the identity barrier is not the only thing they have to face, they face a lot of discrimination in various spheres like the economy, politics, health and most importantly formal recognition over their own land.
This needs to be remembered that even though these indigenous communities make up only 5% of the world population, they are responsible for safeguarding 80% of the world’s diversity. From the Chipko Movement in India to the Kari-Oca 2 Declaration or Water Declaration of the Anishinaabek, Mushkegowuk and Onkwehonwe of 2008 or Mystic Lake Declaration of 2009, all these movements and declarations were raised by the indigenous communities, in order to safeguard ‘our’ environment.
There are a few communities who are struggling for decades to make people aware of the needs of nature while there are few others who are in such grave conditions, that they struggle daily for their communities’ existence. And unfortunately we the so-called citizens and rulers of the nations are at fault and are just adding to their miseries daily.
“We’re not living in an age of no hope. We are living in the age of choice, which is much scarier.”
-Ezra Miller
Every faith or religion believes that those who are right will never suffer for the wrong deeds of others, but in today’s time, it seems like the righteous are the bearers of the sinful. And most probably it is this, why the indigenous people, who have always stood up to preserve mother nature and the environment are the ones who are most affected by the ill effects of industrialization caused by the nation. In the past few decades, there have been a lot of studies explaining how the changes in our environment have affected the health of these communities. Unfortunately, not a single advancement of modern times was able to prevent the negative impact, those who lived healthily for ages are now suffering from crippling diseases and as expected it was not their fault at all. The so-called urban population have made a habit of exploiting the resources from nature and then dumping their wastes into it even after being aware of the repercussions.
Impact of Modernisation on Indigenous Populations
Indigenous people get exposed to pollutants in different ways because they are the consumers of raw nature, they don’t have purifiers for cleaning the water they drink and the air they breathe. Activities like mineral extraction, oil and gas extraction, toxic waste dumping, industries, agrochemical and radioactive contamination have polluted the rivers which provide them water, the land they live on and the air they respire. And because they still continue to live minimally, they don’t have any means to prevent themselves from these toxins.
According to statistics, the life expectancy gap between indigenous and non-indigenous population is as high as 20 years in few parts of the world like Australia and Nepal. Fortunately in India, we don’t have such a wide gap and it is around 5-6 years only, although we still lack accurate statistics. Most of these groups are so remote that whatever idea we have about the health conditions of these indigenous communities is through the reports put up by various respected organizations like the United Nations. These communities live in dire poverty and lack resources and healthcare facilities so they directly become prey to many basic diseases also. Indigenous communities are more prone to diseases like tuberculosis, microbial infections, water-borne diseases like cholera, cancers, AIDS, etc.
Image Source: Image by Aino Tuominen from Pixabay
According to reports almost half of the indigenous adults above the age of 35 years suffer from diabetes mellitus type 2, which is mainly due to constant exposure to persistent organic pollutants. Many indigenous groups are in an even worse condition than the underdeveloped rural communities as a result of which maternal and infant mortality rates are also high in these groups. The contaminated water has not only led to water-borne diseases but has also affected breast milk, as it is found that many indigenous women have PCB in breast milk. Lead exposure is common due to the dumping of pollutants around the habitats of these communities leading to growth and weight deficiencies.
Cancer is very common in communities that live around mining sites and oil fields. Many children suffer from leukaemias, autism, and neurological problems. The polluted water and land, in turn, pollutes the food and lead to biomagnification at various levels and because the diet of indigenous people is very different from the non-indigenous groups they are more prone to harmful effects by accumulated pollutants. They suffer from malnutrition because of the degradation of the environment and ecosystem in which they live.
There has been a trend in recent times where the developed countries prefer dumping their industrial waste in developing or underdeveloped countries as a result the tribes in underdeveloped and developing countries become more prone to exposure to toxic contaminants, affecting their health. Some studies also indicate that the pollutants can affect the mental health of communities also leading to increased cases of behavioural changes, anxiety and depression.
Indigenous Populations in India
If we talk about the Indian scenario, India is home to almost 700 indigenous communities which accounts for almost 8.6% of the Indian population. But even after having such a major indigenous population, there are no concrete plans for safeguarding and promoting the well being of these people. The government is more than comfortable in occupying their land and making plans without considering their opinions, beliefs and demands. We have multiple examples for it but the latest being the incident in Lakshadweep, where the ruling government just introduced a plan with the goal of promoting tourism on the island and making it a smart city. But this plan was accused by others as a means of destroying the unique culture and tradition. The locals and indigenous communities have also strongly protested against this plan but the government thinks it has more benefits than risks. The plan as a whole undermines the rights of indigenous groups and that is where it goes wrong. Adding to it the fragile condition of the ecosystem in Lakshadweep also raises the question of whether the island would be able to sustain any developmental changes of this sort. We don’t know the future of such a plan but something which is very evident from the present is that it will have a major negative impact on the lives of indigenous people and nature. Already the different indigenous groups in India have been prey to these developmental goals.
The picture of the health condition of indigenous groups in India is not at all different from that of the whole world. The reports don’t give us exact and reliable figures about the conditions but the mortality rates of these groups are significantly more than that of the normal population. It is known that almost 50% of adolescent girls are underweight and there are 65% of women are anaemic. Other diseases which are more prevalent in these communities are tuberculosis (only 11% of TB cases get treated), leprosy (these communities account for almost 18.5%of leprosy cases and there are still many undiagnosed cases), malaria (50% of deaths from malaria is from these communities), malnutrition (even though there has been a decrease in malnutrition cases, still an appreciable decrease is not achieved).
The indigenous groups have also been more prone to addiction of various sorts, affecting their health further. Most of the problems that these groups are facing don’t seem to be pointing towards environmental changes but in the bigger picture, the only and most important reason is environmental change. Indeed a lot can be managed by implementing and providing proper healthcare to them but in medical terms that is only a symptomatic treatment and for a definitive treatment we need to address the main reason for the problem.
On a Concluding Note….
Eventually, we need to realise that whatever effect pollution and change in the environment has on us, is half of what it has on the indigenous groups because they are deeply connected to the environment and don’t have any resources or interest to protect themselves from the contaminated nature. But the most saddening truth is that they suffer the contamination caused by others.
Lastly, if we have to conclude about how environmental health has affected indigenous communities then maybe we don’t have an answer because none of us knows the real plight they have been going through; our judgement is just based on the reports we get from some organisations. Without any doubt, there are so many communities about which we have no idea. Whatever we have is just comparative data and unfortunately, this comparative data is also very haunting. There are many government and non-government organisations that have done great work in addressing the problems but still, we have a long way to go.