Declaration of Climate Emergency

December 2020

We, the members of ASAA/NZ, recognise the importance of human beings throughout history coming together in times of crisis to confront threats to their societies, their wellbeing and their environment. Today the greatest existential threat confronting humans everywhere is the climate crisis, which we ourselves are largely responsible for creating. In order to envision and attain a sustainable future, we must acknowledge the need for collective action. To that end, we as an organisation join others in declaring a climate emergency. In so doing, we pledge individually and collectively to work towards addressing the grave crisis confronting the climate and humans globally.

We see this as particularly important in this present moment as we imagine a post-COVID world. It is crucial that post-COVID recovery is grounded in a politics of sustainability and that any progress made ensures climate action stays front and centre.

As Anthropologists we know well the interdependencies between the environment, livelihoods, culture (variously understood), politics, and everyday life. To ignore the increasingly dire conditions under which we are living and to which our institutions and we as individuals are contributing, is no longer an option. The time for urgent action is now.

Through this declaration, we thus hope to highlight the mutually exacerbating effects of:

  • extractive economic practices, their contribution to climate change and adverse impacts on livelihoods;

  • people being made climate refugees;

  • intensifying inequality;

  • the threat to women’s reproductive rights and wellbeing in light of ‘overpopulation’ discourses and policies;

  • the loss of homes, coastal communities and farms that are threatened by drought, flooding or sea level rise;

  • the material and existential threat to children, childhood and young people;

  • the threat to food systems;

  • the loss of biological diversity;

  • the threat to marine and freshwater environments and life; and

  • local economies struggling to adapt to climate impacts.

In particular, while drafting this declaration from Aotearoa New Zealand, we recognise the role of Indigenous knowledge and ownership of land, sea and other natural resources in protecting biodiversity and mitigating species decline. We are also keenly aware of human wellbeing through our own trans-Pacific connections and local experiences of the climate crisis.

As social scientists, we recognise that the climate crisis is the outcome of institutional as well as individual behaviour, and that we cannot continue with ‘business as usual.’ We believe that actions to avoid threatened catastrophe must come from institutions, corporations, politicians as well as adaptations in lifestyles.

At the 2019 annual conference of Aotearoa’s anthropologists in Whāingaroa (Raglan), Waikato, we agreed that, as an organisation, we needed to respond to the climate crisis. A formal declaration of a climate emergency was unanimously ratified and approved by the ASAA/NZ membership at its November 2020 AGM.

To give effect to our declaration, we as a professional association commit to the following steps:

  1. Devoting more research effort, policy input and informed public commentary to understanding, mitigating and adapting to climate change.

  2. No-Waste, low impact conferences/meetings, in which:
    1. All cutlery and silverware will be non-disposable.
    2. Leftover food will not be discarded; we should aim to cater to exact attendee numbers and enable take-home options for members. Vegetarian meals will be the default, preferably using locally-sourced food and small-scale food providers. Exceptions will apply when we are collectively invited to a Marae, Temple, Mosque, or somebody else’s (private or collective) space in which it is inappropriate to dictate the conditions of our dietary requirements.

  3. A digital attendance option for conference participants:
    1. Encouraging and enabling remote panel or single paper presentations with digital support. While we are aware of the large carbon footprint of digital technologies and cloud maintenance, we see this as one step in the right direction to counter the carbon emissions of air travel, and to increase the accessibility of our events.
    2. Encourage members and their institutions to propose local carbon offset programmes and tree planting initiatives.

  4. Encouraging universities to support travel to the annual conference on public transport such as trains and buses and by sharing rides in cars when possible.

  5. ASAA/NZ create and support a working group that pools knowledge and expertise to identify ways in which social anthropologists can have input into Aotearoa New Zealand local and national government policy development.

  6. An attempt by conference planners, to encourage (via a note in the call for panels), at least one panel in each conference that is dedicated to discussing the climate crisis and the ways in which anthropologists and our collaborators are engaging with the issue.

We consider these to be starting points as opposed to the end of our individual and collective engagement on this pressing issue.

The call for Climate Emergency by ASAA/NZ was drafted by (in alphabetical order):

Courtney Addison
Nayantara Sheoran Appleton (Media Liaison)
Lyn Carter
Pauline Herbst
Jane Horan
Terrence Loomis (Co-Chair)
Sally McAra
Fiona McCormack (Co-Chair)