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Sunday, March 17, 2024

Ocean deoxygenation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_deoxygenation

Ocean deoxygenation is the reduction of the oxygen content in different parts of the ocean due to human activities. It occurs firstly in coastal zones where eutrophication has driven some quite rapid (in a few decades) declines in oxygen to very low levels. This type of ocean deoxygenation is also called "dead zones". Secondly, there is now an ongoing reduction in oxygen levels in the open ocean: naturally occurring low oxygen areas (so called oxygen minimum zones (OMZs)) are now expanding slowly. This expansion is happening as a consequence of human caused climate change. The resulting decrease in oxygen content of the oceans poses a threat to marine life, as well as to people who depend on marine life for nutrition or livelihood. Ocean deoxygenation poses implications for ocean productivity, nutrient cycling, carbon cycling, and marine habitats.

Ocean warming exacerbates ocean deoxygenation and further stresses marine organisms, reducing nutrient availability by increasing ocean stratification through density and solubility effects while at the same time increasing metabolic demand. The rising temperatures in the oceans cause a reduced solubility of oxygen in the water, which can explain about 50% of oxygen loss in the upper level of the ocean (>1000 m). Warmer ocean water holds less oxygen and is more buoyant than cooler water. This leads to reduced mixing of oxygenated water near the surface with deeper water, which naturally contains less oxygen. Warmer water also raises oxygen demand from living organisms; as a result, less oxygen is available for marine life.

Studies have shown that oceans have already lost 1-2% of their oxygen since the middle of the 20th century, and model simulations predict a decline of up to 7% in the global ocean O₂ content over the next hundred years. The decline of oxygen is projected to continue for a thousand years or more.

Terminology

The term ocean deoxygenation has been used increasingly by international scientific bodies because it captures the decreasing trend of the world ocean's oxygen inventory. Oceanographers and others have discussed what phrase best describes the phenomenon to non-specialists. Among the options considered have been ocean suffocation, ocean oxygen deprivation, decline in ocean oxygen, marine deoxygenation, ocean oxygen depletion and ocean hypoxia.

Types and mechanisms

There are two types of ocean deoxygenation, taking place in two different zones and having different causes: the reduction of oxygen in coastal zones versus in the open ocean as well as deep ocean (oxygen minimum zones). These are coupled but different.

Coastal zones

Coastal regions, such as the Baltic Sea, the northern Gulf of Mexico, and the Chesapeake Bay, as well as large enclosed water bodies like Lake Erie, have been affected by deoxygenation due to eutrophication. Excess nutrients are input into these systems by rivers, ultimately from urban and agricultural runoff and exacerbated by deforestation. These nutrients lead to high productivity that produces organic material that sinks to the bottom and is respired. The respiration of that organic material uses up the oxygen and causes hypoxia or anoxia.

Open and deep ocean zones (oxygen minimum zones)

In the open ocean there are natural low oxygen areas and these are expanding slowly. These oceanic oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) generally occur in the middle depths of the ocean, from 100 – 1000 m deep. They are natural phenomena that result from respiration of sinking organic material produced in the surface ocean. However, as the oxygen content of the ocean decreases, oxygen minimum zones are expanding both vertically and horizontally. In these low oxygen areas the water circulation is slow. This stability means it is easier to see quite small changes in oxygen, such as a decline of 1-2%. In many of these areas, this decline does not mean these low oxygen regions become uninhabitable for fish and other marine life but over many decades may do, particularly in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.

Oxygen is input into the ocean at the surface, through the processes of photosynthesis by phytoplankton and mixing with the atmosphere. Organisms, both microbial and multicellular, use oxygen in respiration throughout the entire depth of the ocean, so when the supply of oxygen from the surface is less than the utilization of oxygen in deep water, oxygen loss occurs.

This phenomenon is natural, but is exacerbated with increased stratification and increasing ocean temperature. Stratification occurs when water masses with different properties, primarily temperature and salinity, are layered, with lower density water on top of higher density water. The larger the differences in the properties between layers, the less mixing occurs between the layers. Stratification is increased when the temperature of the surface ocean or the amount of freshwater input into the ocean from rivers and ice melt increases, enhancing ocean deoxygenation by reducing supply. Another factor that can reduce supply is the solubility of oxygen. As temperature and salinity increase, the solubility of oxygen decreases, meaning that less oxygen can be dissolved into water as it warms and becomes more salty.

Role of climate change

While oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) occur naturally, they can be exacerbated by human impacts like climate change and land-based pollution from agriculture and sewage. The prediction of current climate models and climate change scenarios is that substantial warming and loss of oxygen throughout the majority of the upper ocean will occur. Global warming increases ocean temperatures, especially in shallow coastal areas. When the water temperature increases, its ability to hold oxygen decreases, leading to oxygen concentrations going down in the water. This compounds the effects of eutrophication in coastal zones described above.

Open ocean areas with no oxygen have grown more than 1.7 million square miles in the last 50 years, and coastal waters have seen a tenfold increase in low-oxygen areas in the same time.

Measurement of dissolved oxygen in coastal and open ocean waters for the past 50 years has revealed a marked decline in oxygen content. This decline is associated with expanding spatial extent, expanding vertical extent, and prolonged duration of oxygen-poor conditions in all regions of the global oceans. Examinations of the spatial extent of OMZs in the past through paleoceanographical methods clearly shows that the spatial extent of OMZs has expanded through time, and this expansion is coupled to ocean warming and reduced ventilation of thermocline waters.

Research has attempted to model potential changes to OMZs as a result of rising global temperatures and human impact. This is challenging due to the many factors that could contribute to changes in OMZs. The factors used for modeling change in OMZs are numerous, and in some cases hard to measure or quantify. Some of the processes being studied are changes in oxygen gas solubility as a result of rising ocean temperatures, as well as changes in the amount of respiration and photosynthesis occurring around OMZs. Many studies have concluded that OMZs are expanding in multiple locations, but fluctuations of modern OMZs are still not fully understood. Existing Earth system models project considerable reductions in oxygen and other physical-chemical variables in the ocean due to climate change, with potential ramifications for ecosystems and humans.

The global decrease in oceanic oxygen content is statistically significant and emerging beyond the envelope of natural fluctuations. This trend of oxygen loss is accelerating, with widespread and obvious losses occurring after the 1980s. The rate and total content of oxygen loss varies by region, with the North Pacific emerging as a particular hotspot of deoxygenation due to the increased amount of time since its deep waters were last ventilated (see thermohaline circulation) and related high apparent oxygen utilization (AOU). Estimates of total oxygen loss in the global ocean range from 119 to 680 T mol decade⁻¹ since the 1950s. These estimates represent 2% of the global ocean oxygen inventory.

Melting of gas hydrates in bottom layers of water may result in the release of more methane from sediments and subsequent consumption of oxygen by aerobic respiration of methane to carbon dioxide. Another effect of climate change on oceans that causes ocean deoxygenation is circulation changes. As the ocean warms from the surface, stratification is expected to increase, which shows a tendency for slowing down ocean circulation, which then increases ocean deoxygenation.

Estimates for the future

The results from mathematical models show that global ocean oxygen loss rates will continue to accelerate up to 125 T mol year⁻¹ by 2100 due to persistent warming, a reduction in ventilation of deeper waters, increased biological oxygen demand, and the associated expansion of OMZs into shallower areas.

Variations

Expanding oxygen minimum zones (OMZ)

Several areas of the open ocean have naturally low oxygen concentration due to biological oxygen consumption that cannot be supported by the rate of oxygen input to the area from physical transport, air-sea mixing, or photosynthesis. These areas are called oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), and there is a wide variety of open ocean systems that experience these naturally low oxygen conditions, such as upwelling zones, deep basins of enclosed seas, and the cores of some mode-water eddies.

Ocean deoxygenation has led to suboxic, hypoxic, and anoxic conditions in both coastal waters and the open ocean. Since 1950, more than 500 sites in coastal waters have reported oxygen concentrations below 2 mg liter⁻¹, which is generally accepted as the threshold of hypoxic conditions.

The extent of OMZs has expanded in tropical oceans during the past half century.

Oxygen-poor waters of coastal and open ocean systems have largely been studied in isolation of each other, with researchers focusing on eutrophication-induced hypoxia in coastal waters and naturally occurring (without apparent direct input of anthropogenic nutrients) open ocean OMZs. However, coastal and open ocean oxygen-poor waters are highly interconnected and therefore both have seen an increase in the intensity, spatial extent, and temporal extent of deoxygenated conditions.

The spatial extent of deoxygenated conditions can vary widely. In coastal waters, regions with deoxygenated conditions can extend from less than one to many thousands of square kilometers. Open ocean OMZs exist in all ocean basins and have similar variation in spatial extent; an estimated 8% of global ocean volume is within OMZs. The largest OMZ is in the eastern tropical north Pacific and comprises 41% of this global volume, and the smallest OMZ is found in the eastern tropical North Atlantic and makes up only 5% of the global OMZ volume.

Vertical extent of low oxygen conditions

The vertical extent of low oxygen conditions is also variable, and areas of persistent low oxygen have annual variation in the upper and lower limits of oxygen-poor waters. Typically, OMZs are expected to occur at depths of about 200 to 1,000 meters. The upper limit of OMZs is characterized by a strong and rapid gradient in oxygenation, called the oxycline. The depth of the oxycline varies between OMZs, and is mainly affected by physical processes such as air-sea fluxes and vertical movement in the thermocline depth. The lower limit of OMZs is associated with the reduction in biological oxygen consumption, as the majority of organic matter is consumed and respired in the top 1,000 m of the vertical water column. Shallower coastal systems may see oxygen-poor waters extend to bottom waters, leading to negative effects on benthic communities.

Many persistent OMZs have increased in thickness over the last five decades. This happened because the upper limit of the OMZ became shallower and also because the OMZ expanded downward.

Variations in temporal duration

The temporal duration of oxygen-poor conditions can vary on seasonal, annual, or multi-decadal scales. Hypoxic conditions in coastal systems like the Gulf of Mexico are usually tied to discharges of rivers, thermohaline stratification of the water column, wind-driven forcing, and continental shelf circulation patterns. As such, there are seasonal and annual patterns in the initiation, persistence, and break down of intensely hypoxic conditions. Oxygen concentrations in open oceans and the margins between coastal areas and the open ocean may see variation in intensity, spatial extent, and temporal extent from multi-decadal oscillations in climatic conditions.

Coastal regions have also seen expanded spatial extent and temporal duration due to increased anthropogenic nutrient input and changes in regional circulation. Areas that have not previously experienced low oxygen conditions, like the coastal shelf of Oregon on the West coast of the United States, have recently and abruptly developed seasonal hypoxia.

Impacts

Ocean deoxygenation poses implications for ocean productivity, nutrient cycling, carbon cycling, and marine habitats. Studies have shown that oceans have already lost 1-2% of their oxygen since the middle of the 20th century, and model simulations predict a decline of up to 7% in the global ocean O₂ content over the next hundred years. The decline of oxygen is projected to continue for a thousand years or more.

The viability of species is being disrupted throughout the ocean food web due to changes in ocean chemistry. As the ocean warms, mixing between water layers decreases, resulting in less oxygen and nutrients being available for marine life.

Ocean deoxygenation is an additional stressor on marine life. Ocean deoxygenation results in the expansion of oxygen minimum zones in the oceans . Along with this ocean deoxygenation is caused by an imbalance of sources and sinks of oxygen in dissolved water. The change has been fairly rapid and poses a threat to fish and other types of marine life, as well as to people who depend on marine life for nutrition or livelihood. Ocean deoxygenation poses implications for ocean productivity, nutrient cycling, carbon cycling, and marine habitats.

As low oxygen zones expand vertically nearer to the surface, they can affect coastal upwelling systems such as the California Current on the coast of Oregon (US). These upwelling systems are driven by seasonal winds that force the surface waters near the coast to move offshore, which pulls deeper water up along the continental shelf. As the depth of the deoxygenated deeper water becomes shallower, more of the deoxygenated water can reach the continental shelf, causing coastal hypoxia and fish kills. Impacts of massive fish kills on the aquaculture industry are projected to be profound.

Marine organisms and biodiversity

Short term effects can be seen in acutely fatal circumstances, but other sublethal consequences can include impaired reproductive ability, reduced growth, and increase in diseased population. These can be attributed to the co-stressor effect. When an organism is already stressed, for example getting less oxygen than it would prefer, it does not do as well in other areas of its existence like reproduction, growth, and warding off disease. Additionally, warmer water not only holds less oxygen, but it also causes marine organisms to have higher metabolic rates, resulting in them using up available oxygen more quickly, lowering the oxygen concentration in the water even more and compounding the effects seen. Finally, for some organisms, habitat reduction will be a problem. Habitable zones in the water column are expected to compress and habitable seasons are expected to be shortened. If the water an organism's regular habitat sits in has oxygen concentrations lower than it can tolerate, it will not want to live there anymore. This leads to changed migration patterns as well as changed or reduced habitat area.

Long term effects can be seen on a broader scale of changes in biodiversity and food web makeup. Due to habitat change of many organisms, predator-prey relationships will be altered. For example, when squeezed into a smaller well-oxygenated area, predator-prey encounter rates will increase, causing an increase in predation, potentially putting strain on the prey population. Additionally, diversity of ecosystems in general is expected to decrease due to decrease in oxygen concentrations.

Effects on fisheries

Vertical expansion of tropical OMZs has reduced the area between the OMZ and surface. This means that many species that live near the surface, such as fish, could be affected periodically. Ongoing research is investigating how OMZ expansion affects food webs in these areas. Studies on OMZ expansion in the tropical Pacific and Atlantic have observed negative effects on fish populations and commercial fisheries that likely occurred from reduced habitat when the OMZ moved to a shallower depth.

A fish's behavior in response to ocean deoxygenation is based upon their tolerance to oxygen poor conditions. Species with low anoxic tolerance tend to undergo habitat compression in response to the expansion of OMZs. Fish species with a low tolerance for low oxygen conditions may move to live nearer the ocean surface where oxygen concentration will usually be higher. Biological responses to habitat compression can be varied. Some species of billfish, predatory pelagic predators such as sailfish and marlin, that have undergone habitat compression actually have increased growth since their prey, smaller pelagic fish, experienced the same habitat compression, resulting in increased prey vulnerability to billfishes. Fish with tolerance to anoxic conditions, such as jumbo squid and lanternfish, can remain active in anoxic environments at a reduced level, which can improve their survival by increasing avoidance of anoxia intolerant predators and have increased access to resources that their anoxia intolerant competitors cannot.

The relationship between zooplankton and low oxygen zones is complex and varies by species and life stage. Some gelatinous zooplankton reduce their growth rates when exposed to hypoxia while others utilize this habitat to forage on high prey concentrations with their growth rates unaffected. The ability of some gelatinous zooplankton to tolerate hypoxia may be attributed to the ability to store oxygen in intragel regions. The movements of zooplankton as a result of ocean deoxygenation can affect fisheries, global nitrogen cycling, and trophic relationships. These changes have the potential to have large economic and environmental consequences through overfishing or collapsed food webs.

Free Ocean CO2 Enrichment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Ocean_CO2_Enrichment

Free Ocean CO₂ Enrichment (FOCE) is a technology facilitating studies of the consequences of ocean acidification for marine organisms and communities by enabling the precise control of CO₂ enrichment within in situ, partially open, experimental enclosures. Current FOCE systems control experimental CO₂ perturbations by real-time monitoring of differences in seawater pH between treatment (i.e. high-CO₂) and control (i.e. ambient) seawater within experimental enclosures.

Overview

In situ, controlled perturbation experiments, often conducted over weeks to months, can provide inference concerning the response of natural communities to ocean acidification that is difficult or impossible to derive from laboratory experiments. Studies conducted in situ can include the effects of potentially important factors such as natural variation in planktonic food resources, larval abundance, changes in predators or competitors, as well as oceanographic conditions (e.g. changes in upwelling intensity). Drawing on the experience of Free Air CO₂ Enrichment (FACE) experiments used to investigate the response of terrestrial plant communities to rising atmospheric CO₂ levels, the scientific community has developed an analogous approach, Free Ocean CO₂ Enrichment (FOCE) experiments, for studying marine communities, and to complement a range of experimental methods and technologies for ocean acidification studies research. FOCE was first proposed and implemented by researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI).

Purpose

As studies of the consequences of ocean acidification for marine organisms and ecosystems expanded rapidly over the past decade, the methods employed to evaluate the effects of expected future changes in ocean chemistry have become more sophisticated. Initial studies frequently involved measurements of the survival or physiological response of individuals of marine species to large changes in pCO2 or pH, while held in small containers under laboratory conditions. This approach increased the level of understanding of the effects of these environmental changes on individual species but provided little information concerning the response of natural assemblages of interacting species, in which the direct impacts of ocean acidification as well as their cascading indirect consequences (e.g. changes in the intensity of interaction strengths among predators or competitors) may be evident. Pelagic mesocosm experiments that examined the response of natural plankton communities to controlled pH perturbations helped move methods of ocean acidification research toward more comprehensive studies of whole communities and embedded processes under mostly natural conditions. The FOCE approach represents an analogous advance for benthic assemblages, by allowing examination of the direct effects of acidification on particular species, but also potential changes in interactions among species. Moreover, FOCE methods provide precise control of pH, while allowing many other parameters to vary naturally. Like mesocosm studies, FOCE methods exploit the advantages of studying a natural community under mostly natural ranges of environmental variability.

Methods

The key elements of any FOCE experimental units are perspex, partially open, chambers, a CO₂ mixing system, sensors to continuously monitor ambient and chamber pH, and a control loop to regulate the addition of gases or liquids to each experimental chamber.

The carbonate chemistry of seawater can be manipulated using different approaches to mimic future conditions. It is possible to directly inject gases (pure CO₂ or CO₂-enriched air) but this is more difficult than delivering water to achieve precise pH control. Current FOCE systems lower pH using metered addition of CO₂-enriched seawater into the experimental chambers. pH is controlled as a constant pH offset relative to ambient values, maintaining natural variability, or as a constant value.

Other approaches have been used to manipulate the seawater carbonate chemistry in the field. In pelagic mesocosm experiments, the carbonate chemistry is generally altered at the beginning of the experiment and subsequently drifts as a function of biological processes and air-sea gas transfer. CO₂ bubbling in open water has also been used. This approach does not enable precise control of the carbonate chemistry because it does not include a device to ensure full equilibration of added CO₂ in seawater and its precise control. There are no experimental chambers to regulate water flow, and thus allows for natural near-bottom flow conditions, but it generates highly variable pH under variable current speed or direction. This approach is therefore more similar to natural CO₂ vents than to FOCE systems. This approach can be useful when organisms can not be enclosed in chambers and when they inhabit environments such as estuaries where pCO2 levels are naturally hyper-variable. The approach has inherent limitations but may allow greater replication, at lower cost.

Current users of FOCE systems have organized to release guidelines and best practices information for future users. Furthermore, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute will release an open source package to transfer FOCE technology to interested researchers (xFOCE). This package will comprise all engineering information required to develop cost effective FOCE systems.

Future development of FOCE systems will include the study of the combined effects of ocean acidification and other environmental factors such as temperature or the concentration of dissolved oxygen.

Current FOCE Projects

Deep FOCE (dpFOCE)

A FOCE system for studies of deep-sea benthic communities (designated dp-FOCE) was developed by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. The dpFOCE project, deployed at a depth of 900 m, was attached to the MARS cabled seafloor observatory in Monterey Bay, central California. The system used a flume concept for maintaining greater control over the experimental volume while still maintaining access to natural seafloor sediments and suspended particulate material. Time-delay wings attached to either end of the dpFOCE chamber allow for tidally driven changes in near-bottom currents, and provide sufficient time for full hydration of the injected CO₂ enriched seawater before entering into the experiment chamber. Fans are integrated into the dpFOCE design to control flow rates through the experimental chamber and to simulate typical local-scale flow conditions. Multiple sensors (pH, CTD, ADV, and ADCP) used in conjunction with the fans and the enriched seawater injection system allow the control loop software to achieve the desired pH offset. dpFOCE connects to shore via the MARS cabled observatory, which provides power and data bandwidth. Enriched CO₂ seawater is produced from liquid CO₂ held in a small container near the dpFOCE chamber; seawater flowing slowly over the top of the liquid CO₂ dissolves some of the liquid CO₂ producing a CO₂-rich dissolution plume used for injection into the dpFOCE chamber. The dpFOCE system operated over 17 months and verified the effectiveness of the design hardware and software.

Coral Prototype FOCE (cpFOCE)

The cpFOCE uses replicate experimental flumes to enclose sections of a coral reef and dose them with CO₂-enriched seawater using peristaltic pumps with computer controlled feedback loop to maintain a specified pH offset from ambient conditions. A cpFOCE chamber has forward and rear flow conditioners on either end to accommodate bidirectional ocean currents. The openings are placed parallel to the dominant axis of tidal currents over the reef flat, and the chamber is anchored with sand stakes. The flow conditioners are attached to maximize turbulence and provide passive mixing of the CO₂ enriched seawater. Four of the tubes in the flow conditioners furthest from the chamber have small holes along their length through which low pH water is pumped to dispense it evenly along the entire width and height of the conditioner. The flow conditioners are also painted white to minimize heating and algal growth. The cpFOCE system was deployed at Heron Island (Great Barrier Reef) to investigate the response of coral communities to ocean acidification.

European FOCE (eFOCE)

The European FOCE (eFOCE) comprises two open-top chambers (control and experimental) as well as a surface buoy housing the electronics and pumps to produce CO₂-enriched water. The system is powered by solar and wind energy. Data packets are wirelessly sent to the nearby laboratory and can be monitored on the internet. The eFOCE system is currently deployed in the bay of Villefranche-sur-mer (France) at about 12 m depth and 300 m offshore. The eFOCE project has been developed to investigate the long-term effects of acidification on benthic marine communities of the North West Mediterranean Sea, especially Posidonia seagrass beds. Over a 3-year period, the aim of the project is to develop relatively long (> 6 month) experiments.

Shallow Water FOCE (swFOCE)

In collaboration with Hopkins Marine Station and the Center for Ocean Solutions, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute is developing a swFOCE system to examine the effects of ocean acidification on shallow subtidal communities in central California. swFOCE will use a shore side station for the control system and production of CO₂ enriched seawater, and will also use and will use an existing cabled observational and research platform to connect the swFOCE node. Two swFOCE chambers will be installed initially at a depth of 15 m, approximately 250 m offshore. The nearby node of the cabled observatorynode, has instruments to monitor local currents, temperature, pH, and O2 in real-time, as a cabled observatory platform for scientific research.

Antarctic FOCE (AntFOCE)

The first polar FOCE (antFOCE) experiment was awarded funding in November 2012, followed by design and concept studies initiated in 2013. Installation and initial science experiments are planned for 2014. antFOCE is a collaborative effort between the University of Tasmania, Australian Antarctic Division, Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and specialist ocean acidification policy advisors from the International Ocean Acidification Reference Users Group (IOA-RUG). The IOA-RUG will take the lead in communicating the outcomes of the FOCE experiment to global climate and ocean policy related organizations.

Indigenous response to colonialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_response_to_colonialism

Indigenous response to colonialism has varied depending on the Indigenous group, historical period, territory, and colonial state(s) they have interacted with. Indigenous peoples have had agency in their response to colonialism. They have employed armed resistance, diplomacy, and legal procedures. Others have fled to inhospitable, undesirable or remote territories to avoid conflict. Nevertheless, some Indigenous peoples were forced to move to reservations or reductions, and work in mines, plantations, construction, and domestic tasks. They have detribalized and culturally assimilated into colonial societies. On occasion, Indigenous peoples have formed alliances with one or more Indigenous or non-Indigenous nations. Overall, the response of Indigenous peoples to colonialism during this period has been diverse and varied in its effectiveness. Indigenous resistance has a centuries-long history that is complex and carries on into contemporary times.

Background

Indigenous peoples are the earliest known inhabitants of a territory that was or remains colonized by a dominant group. Before the age of colonialism, there were hundreds of nations and tribes throughout the territories that would be colonized, with diverse languages, religions and cultures. The peoples that would come to be known as Indigenous had large cities, city-states, chiefdoms, states, kingdoms, republics, confederacies, and empires. These societies had varying degrees of knowledge of the arts, agriculture, engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, irrigation, geology, mining, weather forecasting, navigation, metallurgy and more. Their population would experience a significant collapse due to the effects of colonization. Most Indigenous groups in the world today have been displaced from some or all of their ancestral lands. Indigenous peoples have existed in a context of colonialism, as they are not "Indigenous" without experiencing the practice of colonialism, that is, when their sovereignty and self-determination are realized.

In recent decades, non-Indigenous historiography has paid increased attention to Indigenous agency. Before, Indigenous peoples were studied as passive objects of colonial policy and administration, but now the growing areas of borderland studies and Indigenous agency have emerged.

As European colonialism has spread throughout the world, settlers have become dominant through conquest, occupation, or invasion. In this process, there has been and continues to be conflict between settlers and Indigenous peoples. For hundreds of years in recent history, Indigenous groups have been the target of a number of atrocity crimes including multiple genocides that have destroyed entire nations. In spite of this, Indigenous peoples survive and some are thriving. They account for a population of 476 million, residing in 90 countries around the world and speaking over 5000 languages from several language families, even though hundreds of Indigenous groups are extinct. Some examples of important surviving Indigenous languages include Aymara, Guaraní, Quechua and Mapuche in South America; Lakota and Navajo in North America; Maya and Nahua in Central America; Inuit in the circumpolar region; Sámi in northwest Eurasia; and Torres Strait Islanders and Māori in Oceania. For comparison, at the time of contact in 1492, there were 40 to 70 languages spoken in Europe, mostly from the Indo-European language family.

Indigenous peoples continue to struggle as they suffer discrimination in most countries where they coexist with non-Indigenous peoples. The majority of the world's Indigenous peoples are among the poorest groups within the states where they live, and they amount to 19% of the world's poor.

Contact and conquest

Before Europeans set out to discover what had been populated by others in their Age of Discovery and before the European colonization, Indigenous peoples resided in a large proportion of the world's territory. For example, in the Americas, there are estimates of a population of up to 100 million people. The Indigenous response to colonization has been varied and also changed over time as each group chose to flee, fight, submit, support or seek diplomatic solutions. One example of an Indigenous group that fled is the Beothuk in Newfoundland, which is now practically extinct. The Charrúa were massacred in what is now Uruguay and were completely destroyed. In contrast, the Nenets have accommodated the Russian state.

For a long time, scholars have explained that the large fatality rates of Indigenous peoples upon contact with settlers have been caused by new infectious diseases brought to Indigenous territories from overseas. Recent scholarship has shifted to explore the nature of the difficult conditions of life imposed on Indigenous peoples due to colonization itself, which made Indigenous peoples more vulnerable to any disease, including new diseases. In other words, causes of death such as forced labor combined with hunger that converged during the colonization process made Indigenous peoples weaker and less resistant to disease. For example, scholars maintain that smallpox probably killed a third of the population in colonial Mexico but admit that there is no evidence to quantify the impact with certainty.

Cuitláhuac, Aztec Tlatoani who led to victory in battle

During the colonization of New Spain from the 16th to the 18th centuries, the focus of the colonizers was to practice agriculture, farming, mining, and infrastructure construction while exploiting Indigenous labor. Slavery was one of the main factors that decimated the Indigenous population of North America. Indigenous slavery predated and outlasted the African slave trade until the 20th century. The Spanish crown allowed slavery of Indigenous peoples captured in "just wars", which included Indigenous resistance to colonialism, such as religious conversion or forced labor. Indigenous forced labor took place in repartimientos, encomiendas, Spanish missions and haciendas. Indigenous women and children were forced to do domestic work. Even after slavery was outlawed by the Spanish Empire, and then ex-colonies such as the Mexican and United States governments, those that benefitted from slavery used legal frameworks to avoid enforcement such as vagrancy laws, convict leasing, and debt peonage.

Francisco Tenamaztle, Indigenous leader in the Mixtón War, statue on the main square of Nochistlán de Mejía, Zacatecas

Indigenous nations sought diplomacy or military alliances to survive, seeking allies in other nations, including neighbouring Indigenous nations and other colonizing powers, as in the French and Indian War and the War of 1812. In Central America, Miskito people allied with the English to resist Spanish colonialism. Indigenous peoples have sought alliances if the alliance has improved their chances of survival or worked to their advantage. Some Indigenous nations attempted to show their allegiance to the colonizing power by becoming a military ally in the attacks of other Indigenous nations, as in the case of the Tlaxcalans in the central valley of Mexico. Other times, they would ally themselves with escaped African slaves, as in the case of the Seminoles.

On rare occasions, Indigenous peoples would be successful in battle against European armies. Examples include the Battle of Curalaba, La Noche Triste, Chichimeca War and the Battle of Big Horn. The Mapuche in Chile, the Māori in New Zealand, the Yaquis in Mexico, and the Seminoles in Florida resisted for decades or even centuries. However, in many parts of the world, Indigenous peoples moved away from fertile, resource-rich territories to inaccessible and inhospitable territories such as swamps, deserts and jungles. They were displaced from fertile places in Argentina, Brazil, the Philippines and temperate Africa. Some examples include small Indigenous groups moving to parts of the Amazon basin, Australia, Central America, the Arctic and Siberia. Others came into conflict with other Indigenous groups as they were forcefully displaced and occupied territory that was inhabited by other Indigenous groups. On occasions, the reaction of Indigenous peoples to attacks resulted in their transformation into warrior horse cultures that used European fire guns to resist further invasion of their territories. Even today, the stereotypical Native American depicted in Indian Wars is riding on a horse. For example, the people of the Great Plains and Mapuche adopted the horse into their everyday cultures.

Indigenous peoples also adopted newly introduced domestic animals in their diet as Europeans introduced chicken, cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep in the Columbian exchange. Indigenous peoples have hunted their territory for centuries or millennia, and many times killed the animals belonging to settlers, and this has been the cause of much conflict between settlers and Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples were not always conquered militarily, as in the case of treaties made between Great Britain and France with Indigenous peoples. The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi of the Maori, and the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo of the Navajo are two examples of treaties that remain important today.

Colonization

Modern colonialism that started in the 15th century, along with European transatlantic navigation, resulted in the expansion of European empires and the associated settler colonialism that occurred in the Americas, Oceania, South Africa and beyond.

According to historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, the fact that Indigenous peoples survive today against genocidal attacks is proof of resistance:

Native nations and communities, while struggling to maintain fundamental values and collectivity, have from the beginning resisted modern colonialism using both defensive and offensive techniques, including the modern forms of armed resistance of national liberation movements and what now is called terrorism. In every instance they have fought for survival as peoples.

Dunbar-Ortiz sets examples of resistance in North America in the cases of the Pueblo Revolt, the Pequot War, King Philip's War, and the Seminole Wars.

Historical Indigenous resistance leaders throughout the world include Cajemé, Caupolican, Dundalli, Geronimo, Lautaro, Lempira, Mangas Coloradas, Manco Inca, Tupac Amaru II, Tecumseh, and Tenskwatawa.

At times, Indigenous peoples used violent resistance, at times successfully or at times involving two or more Indigenous allies. Examples include the Mixton rebellion, the Zapatista uprising, the Caste War of Yucatán, Rebellion of Tupac Amaru II, the Tzeltal Rebellion of 1712, Pontiac's War and the North-West Rebellion. Academic Benjamin Madley said that throughout the world, groups targeted for annihilation resist, often violently. He details the case of the Modoc War comparing the casualties of the conflict. Furthermore, he says that "The Modoc genocide is hardly the only genocide against Indigenous people that has been sanitized as war." According to Frank Chalk, in the 19th century United States, the federal government policy toward Native Americans was ethnocide, but when they resisted, the result sometimes was genocidal. Historically, victims of genocide have resisted, and this resistance has been criminalized to justify massacres.

According to Ken Coates, sexual relations between Indigenous women and non-Indigenous men took place to some extent in New Zealand, New Spain, the Metis in Canada, whereas they generally did not take place in other places such as Australia and British North America. People of mixed settler-Indigenous ancestry have been discriminated against. The mixing blurred the lines between Indigenous and newcomer populations, and most learned the language of the colony, which was a European language. Some scholars have argued that the concept of mestizaje, the process of transcultural mixing, has been used to promote assimitionalism and monoculturalism in Latin America.

In North America, where the British made treaties with Indigenous peoples, they learned that these treaties could be broken and would not protect their communities. Faced with the risk that their people would be destroyed, leaders of Indian resistance agreed to treaties requiring land cessions, and the redefinition of borders in the hope that the settlers would not encroach further on Indigenous territory. One of such examples is the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, a federally recognized Indian Nation, which was led by Potawatomi leader Leopold Pokagon. Other times, treaties were signed under coercion or right after Indigenous groups suffered massacres, such as in the case of the Treaty of Hartford of 1638. Colonial powers also sought control of new territories by appropriating the Indigenous elite through bribery and assimilation.

In North America, the United States and Canada established residential schools, removing Indigenous children from their families for years while prohibiting the use of their Indigenous language and cultural practices. Australia focused on children with mixed ethnicity and removed children to be placed in residential schools or to be adopted by non-Indigenous families. Canada and the United States have assimilated Indigenous peoples via Indian termination policies, in which incentives are offered for Indigenous peoples to renounce Indigenous rights in exchange for benefits such as citizenship rights. Furthermore, Canada removed Indigenous rights if an Indigenous woman married a non-Indigenous person, an Indigenous person graduated from university, or joined the military.

The Cherokee Nation is one of the federally recognized tribes within the United States. It is now located in Oklahoma after being forcefully removed in the Trail of Tears along with other Indigenous groups. Indigenous groups in North America were assigned to small reservations, typically on remote and economically marginal territories that would not support crops, fishing or hunting. Some of the reservations were then dismantled through an allotment process such as the Dawes act in North America, but some Indigenous peoples refused to sign.

A 2009 United Nations report stated that Indigenous peoples have "...documented histories of resistance, interface or cooperation with states...Indigenous peoples were often recognized as sovereign peoples by states, as witnessed by the hundreds of treaties concluded between Indigenous peoples and the governments of the United States, Canada, New Zealand and others".

Contemporary response

Strategies

Indigenous strategies continue to pursue Indigenous rights and freedom and seek to rebuild their nations and cultures to maintain national groups with distinct cultural identities. Indigenous nations continue to pursue self-determination and sovereignty.

Contemporary Indigenous strategies have included negotiations, mediation, arbitration, political statements, blockades, legal challenges, activism, political demonstrations and civil disobedience. A few have worked on the removal from public spaces of symbols of Indigenous oppression, such as monuments to Christopher Columbus, John A. Macdonald, and Junipero Serra. Much resistance has also been used to bring Indigenous issues to public attention.

Indigenous peoples commemorate historical events and processes on an annual or periodic basis. Examples include Unthanksgiving Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. Activists have also protested what they consider controversial colonial holidays, such as Australia Day, and Columbus Day and its quincentenary celebration.

Erich Steinman has compiled a record of Native American resistance processes and responses that he says are not well studied by American sociology.

In New Zealand and Ecuador, Indigenous peoples have formed political parties, Te Pāti Māori and Pachakutik respectively. Bolivia has had an Indigenous president, Evo Morales.

Indigenous nations and peoples have managed to survive despite sustained long-term attacks to their survival as Indigenous nations, cultures or as members of an Indigenous group. Hall argues that Indigenous peoples challenge the idea that the state is the basic form of political organization. He argues that the Indigenous fight for self-determination today is part of a cycle of centuries of resistance to colonialism.

Views on ongoing colonialism

Elaine Coburn and historian Lorenzo Veracini say that colonialism is present in contemporary settler colonial states, including Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. Michael Grewcock has argued that in Australia, there are Indigenous peoples "who still resist the colonization of country that was never ceded".

Native American anthropologist Audra Simpson argues that the colonial project is ongoing, as the case of the Mohawks of Kahnawake, a self-governing territory of the Mohawk Nation within the borders of Canada.

Pablo G. Casanova has said that in Mexico there has been a practice of internal colonialism. According to sociologist Anibal Quijano, Bolivia and Mexico have undergone limited decolonialization through a revolutionary process. In Mexico, the case of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) denotes resistance in many areas, including education, territorial, epistemological, political and economic terms. EZLN is viewed as a continuation of the struggle against more than 500 years of oppression of Indigenous peoples.

According to Ken Coates, liberal democracies do not like being called up on internal human rights abuses "when these same governments are often prominent in criticizing other nations for abuses of human and civil rights". Furthermore, post-independence era countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia have been dismissive of Indigenous rights as much as colonial empires.

Indigenous storytelling

Oral storytelling is important to Indigenous culture, but it has been underepresented. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has said that when Howard Zinn wrote his United States' history book, he did not include the history of the Indigenous peoples, so he said that she could write what would become such a book: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. Rigoberta Menchu published an essay about her life with personal experiences directly related to the Guatemalan genocide and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Truth commissions

There are Truth Commissions that have investigated and reported on Indigenous atrocities. Some of them include the Guatemala Historical Clarification Commission, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Norway.

Museums

In Latin America, there are only a few museums whose central theme is that of colonization and history of Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples and others have protested against museum´s exhibitions. Notable examples of Indigenous museums are Museu do Índio (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil), Royal Museum for Central Africa (Brussels, Belgium), Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, France), National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico City), Museum of the Tropics (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Museo Nacional de Antropología and Museo de América (Madrid, Spain), American Indian Genocide Museum (Houston, USA), George Gustav Heye Center (New York City, USA), and National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C., USA).

Many smaller European colonial museums have closed after the end of European colonization. According to Pascal Blanchard, the political climate in France has not allowed the emergence of a museum about French colonialism. In Bristol, England, the only museum dedicated to colonialism, British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, has been closed after operating for just 6 years.

In North America, American Museum of Natural History in New York, Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and Cleveland Museum of Art have begun to close exhibits with Indigenous themes to comply with federal regulations that mandate tribal consent and repatriation of human remains.

Indigenous media

There are a number of Indigenous broadcasting organizations from countries serving Indigenous themes, including APTN, First Nations Experience, NITV, NRK Sami and Whakaata Māori.

Language

Some movements, such as the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, have sought to promote the use of Indigenous languages in educational programs. In recent years, there has been a revival in the use of Māori language in New Zealand, where it is an official language and taught in 350 schools. New technologies are making access to educational language programs accessible to the general public. Furthermore, there are examples of Indigenous schools that move away from Eurocentric curriculums while considering the graduates' future prospects within a non-Indigenous majority state. In Paraguay, Guaraní is the official language and is spoken by 6.5 million people in the region. Quechua and Aymara are official languages in Peru and Bolivia and are spoken by 8 and 2.5 million people, respectively. Nationalism has promoted the use of local languages in most of Eurasia, but in the rest of the world, European languages remain dominant in mass media, education and the internet.

Culture

Today, Indigenous peoples can react to cultural processes in various ways, including acculturation, transculturation, assimilation, and cultural loss, while some remain separated from the dominant culture or marginalized from any group, including their own. In Hispanic America, Indigenous peoples have adopted Spanish religion, institutions, language, and literature, as well as non-endemic domestic animals and crops.

Some scholars and Indigenous peoples argue that renaming geographical entities should be part of a reclaiming process of Indigenous cultures.

International law

In the area of international law, the Working Group on Indigenous Populations participated directly in the development of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and worked on the development of the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989. Indigenous scholar Jeff Corntassel said that article 46 of UNDRIP may be detrimental to some Indigenous rights: "...the restoration of their land-based and water-based cultural relationships and practices is often portrayed as a threat to the territorial integrity of the country(ies) in which they reside, and thus, a threat to state sovereignty".

For decades, Indigenous peoples had demanded that the Catholic Church rescinded the Doctrine of Discovery theories that justified the seizure of Indigenous land and supported a legal basis.

Colonialism and genocide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism_and_genocide

The connection between colonialism and genocide has been explored in academic research. According to historian Patrick Wolfe, "[t]he question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism." Historians have commented that although colonialism does not necessarily directly involve genocide, research suggests that the two share a connection.

Colonialism has been reinforced during various periods in history, even during progressive eras such as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, a period in the history of 17th and 18th Century Europe which was marked by dedication to progressive reform, natural social hierarchies were reinforced, Europeans who were educated, white, and native-born were considered high-class and less-educated, non-European people were considered low-class. These natural hierarchies were reinforced by progressives such as Marquis de Condorcet, a French mathematician, who believed that slaves were savages due to their lack of modern practices, despite the fact that he advocated the abolition of slavery. First, the colonization process usually works to attack the homes of those who are being targeted. Typically, the people who are subjected to colonizing practices are portrayed as lacking modernity, because they and the colonialists do not have the same level of education or technology.

The term genocide was coined in the 20th century by Raphael Lemkin to describe the Armenian genocide, although genocides have been committed since ancient times. Years later, the term was unanimously accepted by the United Nations and it was defined as an internationally illegal practice as a part of Resolution 96 in 1946. Various definitions of genocide exist. However, the Convention of Genocide has defined genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” It is important to note that all definitions of genocide involve ethnicity, race, or religion as a motivational factor. Genocide scholar Israel Charny has proposed a definition of genocide in the course of colonization.

The example of Tasmania is cited, where white settlers wiped out indigenous Tasmanians, an event which is genocide by definition as well as an event which is a result of settler colonialism. Additionally, instances of colonialism and genocide in California and Hispaniola are cited below. The instance in California references the colonization and genocide of indigenous tribes by euro-Americans during the gold rush period. The example in Hispaniola discusses the island's colonization by Columbus and other Spaniards and the genocide inflicted on the native Taino people.

Researched examples of genocide linked to colonialism

Another example of colonialism and Genocide is the genocide which was committed against the Taino tribe on Hispaniola after the arrival of Christopher Columbus and other Spanish colonizers. Columbus and his crew arrived on the island of Haiti in December 1492. Initially leaving 39 Spaniards behind, Columbus left and a year later, he returned with more Spaniards in order to complete his conquest of the Dominican Republic. There are no exact tallies of how many Taino people inhabited Hispaniola when Columbus arrived on it. However, it is estimated that the number of Taino people who lived on Hispaniola was at least hundreds of thousands and it may have been up to a million or more. However, during the 25 years when the Spanish colonized the islands of Hispaniola, the Taino people were murdered, subjected to slavery, and by the year 1514, only 32,000 Taino people remained alive.
Black War of Tasmania, 1820s–1832. This was a guerrilla war fought between European settlers and Aboriginal Tasmanians, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 900 Aboriginal locals and the near extinction of the island's Aboriginal population.
According to Jack Norton, a Hupa and Cherokee scholar, the colonization of California was attributed to Manifest Destiny, and the success of European colonizers in the West was attributed to the genocide of indigenous peoples. In a government-sponsored move to California, European colonizers emigrated west to further colonize the north American continent due to the discovery of gold in California. Upon arriving, Brendan Lindsay, an American behavioral scientist, notes that the euro-American group encountered nearly 150,000 indigenous tribes, and colonizers worked to drive them away, murder them, or have them collected by militiamen or vigilante forces. As the gold rush ended and as euro-American colonizers began to cultivate the land and create democracy in California, the treatment of indigenous tribes became much worse. The first California Governor, Peter H. Burnett, declared that a “war of extermination” should be waged against Indians, the war was recounted by numerous newspapers which were published at that time.
According to the Tibetan Government in Exile (TGIE), during the early years of the rule of the Chinese administration in Tibet, an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans died between 1951 and 1984. Tibet expert Barry Sautman considers this number highly "inaccurate," because there is "no credible evidence of ongoing mass killing, physically enforced birth control, or forced intermarriage in Tibet." Sautman also challenges the notion that Chinese practices in Tibet can be considered genocidal or colonial, stating that "Tibet's non-colonial nature can be derived from the nature of modern colonialism" and citing the political and legal equality of Tibetans under the current administration.
In Belgium, the atrocities in the Congo Free State are not in the public discourse, and the topic is not entirely addressed in education. The archive of the colony was destroyed. In 1999, Adam Hochschild published King Leopold's Ghost, an award-winning book (and a documentary) about the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State. The American Historical Association has awarded the book and claimed that Belgium has come to terms with this history because of the book.

Settler colonialism and genocide

There is a number of international scholars whose work established a relation between settler colonialism and genocide, as seen below. Settler colonialism is different from immigration because immigrants often assimilate into an existing society, not to destroy it to replace it. Ann Curthoys is an Australian historian and academic who wrote about the view of genocide scholar Leo Kuper: "Nevertheless, the course of colonization of North and South America, the West Indies, and Australia and Tasmania, [Leo] Kuper observes, has certainly been marked all too often by genocide." Noam Chomsky has considered settler colonialism to be the most vicious form of imperialism, and describes the lack of self-awareness of the genocide by some Americans.

Pulitzer Prize winning historian Bernard Baylin has said that the Dutch and English conquests were just as brutal as those of the Spanish and Portuguese, in certain places and in certain times "genocidal". He says that this history, for example the Pequot War, is not erased but conveniently forgotten. The different European colonizing powers were all similarly cruel in their dealings with Indigenous peoples.

David Stannard historian and professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii analyzed the genocidal process in two cases of colonization. He said that the British did not need massive labor as the Spanish, but land: "And therein lies the central difference between the genocide committed by the Spanish and that of the Anglo-Americans: in British America extermination was the primary goal." Thus, in British America they would clear the land of Indigenous peoples, and put the few survivors in reserves.

Gregory D. Smithers, a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Aberdeen, has weighed in as well: "Ward Churchill refers to settler colonialism in North America as 'the American holocaust', and David Stannard similarly portrayed the European colonization of the Americas as an example of 'human incineration and carnage'."

Mark Levene, a historian at University of Southampton, linked colonialism and genocide: "In this, of course, we come back to the fatal nexus between the Anglo-American drive to rapid state-building and genocide." Levene has said that the authorities are silent about genocide in the case of the colonization of Australia, even though the press reports described the events.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, an American historian, professor at California State University, describes settler colonialism as inherently genocidal from the perspective of the terms of the Genocide Convention. She pointed out that genocide does not have to be total to be genocide, as the most famous genocide (the Holocaust) of all was not total.

Stephen Howe, professor in the History and Cultures of Colonialism at the University of Bristol, UK, relates colonialism with genocide and says the case for colonialism causing genocide is very strong.

Martin Shaw has argued that in a colonial context: "each side shattered the opposing civilian population while pursuing military goals."

Historian Jacques Depelchin has said that the crimes of colonization have always been denied.

Christian P. Sherrer has argued that almost all European colonial powers used genocide as part of the colonization process. According to Elyse Semerdjian, settler colonial warfare is a slow genocidal process.

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