'Radical hope' and rain: climate change and the mental health of Indigenous residents of northern Australia.
Objective: This paper considers the short, intermediate and longer term effects of climate change in relation to the mental health of Indigenous residents of northern Australia, and what these effects mean in terms of supporting adaptation and resilience. Conclusions: Indigenous Australians have contended with change for millennia, with the drivers shifting from ecological to social pressures since European colonization. Climate change resulting from human activities introduces a new set of change forces which will in the short term be mediated by economic and social effects internationally.
Hunter
Ernest
E
Foundation Fellow, Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health, and Adjunct Professor, University of Queensland, Cairns, QLD, Australia.