The young people fighting to save their culture from the climate
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What happens to cultural traditions when the climate changes? It feels as if we are losing an important part of ourselves and our connections to our ancestors. The Greenlandic culture is a world around the nature and therefore losing it would be a great loss

for all of our identities. The temperature in Iraq, and especially in southern Iraq, in the marshes, the temperature over than 40. We are depending only on the nature, only on the water. If the marsh disappear, the fishermen, they start to immigrate. The who raising buffaloes also start to looking for another source for water.

And I think the city, it will become like a ghost town. Rising seas are swallowing up land and historic sites. Communities and wildlife are being forced to relocate. Around the world, cultures and identities are being eroded by climate change. Today, you're going to hear about some of the traditions that are at risk and what people are doing to try to hold on to their culture. I'm Hannah Gelbart, and this is What in the World from the BBC World Service. What in the World

And joining us to tell us more is Abiona Boye from the What in the World team. Hi, Abiona. Hi, Hannah. So you are Albanian. What were some of the traditions that you had growing up with Albanian parents? Well, there's always been a big emphasis on music, dance and language. So in Albania, we have an instrument called the ciftali.

It's like a banjo-like instrument. It's really, really hard to play and really, really hard to make. So a lot of young people aren't particularly taking it up. My personal favorite is the dancing that we do. So at weddings, we like to do our traditional cultural dance. And we have a lot of them. There's over 200 distinct regions in Albania. So there's over 200 types of dance. But unfortunately, we've become increasingly globalized. So now we just have one dance that we mainly do. It's kind of like a universal merging of all of the different dances. What's that dance like?

You're going to have to show me later. Well, it's called Vala. So you basically hold hands and it's kind of similar to Dabke, like the Arab dance. So you just run round and kick your legs and shout and you have a little napkin in your hand and twirl around. A little bit of sword belly dancing involved. Sounds a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun. And we're talking about this because you've been looking into how different cultural practices, traditions are changing. Nearly every community has its own traditions, but some of these are now at risk because of climate change.

Yes. So typically when we talk about climate change, we look at rising sea levels or wildlife and species decline. But cultural heritage is something that is also at risk as well. So the United Nations Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization or UNESCO, they actually identified this as intangible heritage. So they've currently identified 733 different bits of cultural heritage that are at risk. So there's an example of a Himalayan village called

Daya, they typically grow yaks on the mountains. But unfortunately, because of temperatures rising, the ice has been melting. So the land is just too dry to do that. So they actually relocated. But where they relocated to, they don't actually have permission to farm. So they can't produce the yak, which makes their traditional milk. And they use the wool to spin a really nice yarn for their clothes. So they just had to abandon that particular practice. And you've been speaking to some climate activists about this as well.

Yeah, so I've been speaking to Muntadhar Abdel Ali. He's a young Iraqi belonging to the Madan or Marsh Arabs. Now, these marshes are located in southern Iraq. So in this particular area, they raise buffaloes. So these buffaloes create a specific type of milk that Iraqis use to create gay mark cream. Now, this is a delicacy. It's iconic part of the culture. They have it for breakfast every morning with honey. But this milk can't be mass produced. And if the marshes are drying up,

There's no water to feed the buffaloes. Hi, hello everybody. I am Muntalar Abdali, environmental activist and culture speaker. I live in southern Iraq in the marshlands. When I was young, I go to the small island on my father's boat and explore this area. And it has a beautiful nature, beautiful ecosystem. When I discovered it, I was really proud that my parents, they were marsh Arabs.

And then tell me more about those cultural traditions. For example, they have a rich houses, okay? And this is like only from the nature. If you want to build it, it takes just one day or two days with your family if they help you. You know, the marsh Arabs, only they are raising buffaloes in the marshes.

So the buffalo depends only on the water. If there is a lot of water and marsh is a good, a good marsh, a good like a grass, reeds, papyrus for the buffaloes. But the buffaloes like king gives a milk for them and they can sell it. They can make it as a cream. But right now we have a like lack of the water.

And unfortunately, the marsh Arabs right now in the marshes, they are buying the filtered water to their buffaloes. The buffaloes cannot drink the water in the marshes because of the salinity. If it drinks it, it's going to die. The drought starts in 2022 and until now, it's a drought year.

I know some area, it was like over 130 families in the marshes. Right now, when you go to this area, to the waste of Hamar marshes, it's only like 30 families. And what would it mean for yourself and for other marsh Arabs if the marshes were to completely dry up?

So that's how

The heat and rising temperatures have been affecting Iraqi traditions, but over on the other side of the world, you've also got things like melting ice caps, rising sea levels, other effects of climate change. Yeah, so over in Greenland, I've been speaking to 19-year-old Maya Natuk. She comes from a native Inuit tribe.

background and we've been speaking about the different traditions that there are in Greenland so they have these ice highways that connect remote villages to the main towns the communities use these to travel in order to sell their produce they go hunting but they just can't do that anymore because the ice is just completely melted they also dog sled but the warmer weathers means that

There's a rise in diseases, so the dogs are actually dying out and they can't use them. It's just no longer safe to use them. My name is Maynard Duk. I am 19 years old and I come from Greenland, the capital NUG. And I'm a children's rights activist as well as a climate change activist. And I've been so since I was 14. I would say that the land is absolutely crucial for understanding my culture and how it links to my identity as a Greenlandic person.

Our culture and morals are actually created around the nature and its principles. Actually, we have a myth or a story about the mother of the sea, which explains that if you are not good to one another or to yourself, and especially mother nature, then the mother of the sea would actually captivate the animals with her long hair.

and you wouldn't get any food or you wouldn't get the nutrients that you needed if you did not respect the nature. Then we have, of course, the national costume, which is with the women. We have pearls and sealskin boots. Then you have your hair up. It's very much made out of everything you can get from the nature. And then we have the man's costume, which is a white top that's made out of sealskin as well.

And then just black boots for the men that's also made out of seal skin. If there's just no animals left, if all the caribou and the seals have migrated elsewhere, what would that mean? People live off of hunting and of selling what they hunt and what they get and what they fish. So if young people can't do that, that also impacts them on being like, what do I then have left?

And there's some places that heavily rely on what they hunt because they don't have stores nearby. And if these sea animals change location, they don't get the animals at all that they were used to. And you mentioned that you find comfort in the nature. If

If the ice were to continue melting as rapidly as it is, what would that mean for you and your identity if you can't access it anymore? Well, if the ice were to melt in Greenland, it would have massive effects.

negative effects on the Greenlandic community. I've always talked about how the climate change and the ice melting, how it would have an economical effect on the Greenlandic people, but it has also changed the Greenlandic point of view and mindset so drastically because it scares so many people. If

We are losing the ice. It almost feels like if we are losing a part of ourselves and our connections to our ancestors and the principle that they lived after, we will not be able to go about the nature as we used to. And we see nature as a comfort. So that means that the nature community would lose a piece of ourselves, but also a piece of each other.

So what are people like Muntadhar and Maya trying to do to solve this issue and help preserve their traditions? Well, they say that the emphasis should be on education. Even if climate change can't be reversed or stopped, if young people are aware of their heritage and their identity, at least they can hold on to that, even if they are forced to relocate. I've always just encouraged Guarneri people to stay strong and be proud of

who they are for who they are. They should not be ashamed to be Grenadine because they're not used to what other people are used to because they say that what they do is weird or they don't speak properly Danish or English and those sorts of things. You should be proud of

that you are from a place that's so beautiful and there's so few of us. It's almost sort of rare to be Greenlandic at this time. I show people, and especially my community, that our marshes are truly special. I took a lot of people from Europe, around the world, to show them our culture, our marshes,

And that's how much special. Right now, I can see some guys there start to studying about the marshes, studying about our history. And also, I want to make a part of National Park and the marshes that support the generation and gives ideas to the student who wants to learn about marshes more and more. And do you see yourself staying in the marshes for a long time? Or do you plan to maybe migrate to a city in the future?

I will not leave the marshes ever, even if I will see like that all the marshes died. No, I cannot leave it because I'm original from the marshes and my parents, they are also originally from the marshes. And I will speak about this issue, about the drought in the marshes, about what's happened, the climate change and what's happened to the marshes recently. I'm going to speak it because if I leave the marshes, who's going to have a voice for the marshes?

And as well as climate change, which is one of the big issues of our times, how else are these traditions being threatened? Well, globalization is one thing. People have access to other cultures and other identities. So they're learning more about other people and they're kind of giving up their own identity, especially with the rise of American culture, Netflix, TikTok, all of these things are having an influence on people. So they're just not really interested in taking up traditions from their own cultures.

Are there any examples of cultures that have been successfully preserved? Yeah, so the bandoneon is a concertina instrument. It's native to Uruguay and Argentina, and it's a huge part of the tango dance culture.

Now, this is quite a niche instrument. Typically, the people that play it are older, over 60. So the instrument and how to make the instrument actually is kind of dying out with that older generation. So to counteract this, UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage Scheme actually set up free classes for people in the area, for young people in particular, so they can learn how to play the instrument, make it, and also how to dance along to the music too.

Fabiona, we're going to go out dancing. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for coming to the podcast. And that is it for today. This is What In The World from the BBC World Service. I'm Hannah Gelbart. We'll see you next time.