‘The Land is Changing’: UVic team wins global award for Arctic climate research

‘The Land is Changing’: UVic team wins global award for Arctic climate research

Published 5:00 pm Saturday, December 20, 2025

After 15 years of work, the University of Victoria’s Arctic Landscape Ecology Lab and the Gwich’in Tribal Council’s Department of Culture and Heritage received a prestigious award for their work in understanding northern landscape change.

In November, the partners won the internationally renowned 2025 Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award – administered by UArctic and Arctic Circle – for their project, Nan guk’anàatii ejuk t’igwinjik, or The land we are taking care of is changing.

“We submitted a video application to the UArctic and Arctic Circle highlighting our work with the Gwich’in Tribal Council’s Department of Culture and Heritage to understand how climate change is impacting Gwich’in ways of life,” said Trevor Lantz, who leads UVic’s lab, in a news release.

“We are extremely honoured to receive the Frederik Paulsen Award and excited by the support it will provide for collaboration with our research partners in the Northwest Territories,”

According to Lantz, the lab produced inventories of disturbances like permafrost thaw and tundra fires, which helped develop methods to predict landscape sensitivity to the disruptions as the changes continue to disrupt Gwich’in ways of life by altering the abundance of key foods and impeding access to land-based traditions.

Lantz and UVic research associate Tracey Proverbs, along with Gwich’in Tribal Council’s department, will use the 100,000 Euro award to collaborate with Gwich’in knowledge holders on solutions that will support community adaptation.

“What excites me the most about the award is the opportunity to continue working in relationship with the Gwich’in Tribal Council’s Department of Culture and Heritage,” noted Proverbs in the release. “This northern Indigenous nation has had an intricate, robust and resilient relationship with their lands, since time immemorial.”

Arlyn Charlie, culture and heritage coordinator with the Gwich’in Tribal Council’s Department of Culture and Heritage and UVic student, noted that the loss of permafrost and vegetation change has disrupted the migration of the porcupine caribou, a vital food source for the community. Fishing is also being impacted as conditions in rivers and lakes change.

“The land is falling in on itself as the permafrost melts; a flood in 2023 swept away my grandfather’s camp, a fish camp my family used for generations. Personally, there was a lot of anger and frustration after the flood,” noted Charlie.

Lantz, Proverbs and Charlie are working with a larger team to bring together Gwich’in knowledge and scientific modelling to create maps that predict climate change impacts, inform decision-making and adaptation planning and will form a model approach which can be applied broadly across the Arctic.

“The Gwich’in are resilient and adaptive,” noted Charlie in the release.

“Our culture will continue to survive, 50 years to 100 years from now.”

The Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award provides recognition for innovative ideas that aspire to transform knowledge into action to help address the causes and impacts of climate change in the Arctic.