Social and cultural impacts of environmental change on aboriginal Peoples in Canada

Environmental change, often the result of Western industrial development, has had a major impact on Canadian Aboriginal people. Even when there are no provable direct health effects, Aboriginal peoples' holistic concepts of health, balance, and harmony, and the interrelatedness of health and environment lead them to regard social and cultural effects as health effects. This paper explores the links between environmental change and the social and cultural and, hence, health effects these changes produce. It is argued that factors such as Aboriginal holistic concepts of environment and health, perceptions of risk, and difficulties in communication contribute to these social and cultural effects and their subsequent health effects-effects which frequently present a greater problem in Canadian Aboriginal communities than do the direct health effects of environmental change.