Inuit and Arctic Perspectives on Global Environmental Issues.
Remarks by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference
The World Bank Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Week
Washington DC
March 30, 2005
Introduction
Good morning. My name is Sheila Watt-Cloutier. I am the elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), which represents internationally the 155,000 Inuit who live in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka in the Far East of the Russian Federation.
I am pleased to be here and thank the conference organizers for inviting me. My home is in Iqaluit, the capital of Canadas newest territoryNunavut. It will be some weeks before Spring arrives where I live.
The institutions of the World Bank Group rarely focus directly on the Arctic, but your work in the developing world far to the South is crucial to the future of Inuit. More about that later.
I am going to talk about the Arctic and global environmental issues but I suspect that few of you have been to my part of the world. So, it might help if I tell you something about Inuitwe are an ancient people attempting to find our rightful place a place that offered us respect in the new world order of globalization, while at the same time maintaining our rich and very wise culture.
Inuit and the Arctic
I was born in Nunaviknorthern Quebecand lived the first ten years of my life living and traveling by dog-team. Inuit settled in communities in the 1950s and 1960s. Our population is very young and growing quickly.
Tremendous social and economic change has taken place throughout the Arctic since the end of the second world war and there is more to come. Oil, gas and minerals are being developed in our homelands. Hydropower from northern Quebec is exported to New England. In the Summer, university researchers and tourists arrive just like the geese.
The Arctic is no longer isolated physically or psychologically from the rest of the world. Globalization reached us some years ago. I now travel the globe in jumbo jets to talk with people who make investment and public policy decisions that affect the Arctic and the lives of Inuit.
The scale, pace and timing of change and development may differ, but Arctic Indigenous peoplesAthabascans, Gwichin, Sami, and Nenets, and many others as well as Inuit face similar challengecoping with and managing change. That we Inuit are struggling with dependency and self destructive issues are signs of the changes we are going through. In many respects the circumstances of Inuit and other Arctic Indigenous peoples is similar to that of developing rather than developed countries.
I have talked about change, but Inuit remain a hunting culture. We are the people of the snow and sea-ice. We hunt whales, walrus, seals, and caribou. Traditional country food is highly nutritious. I eat country food whenever I can. It would cost tens of millions of dollars to replace our country food with imported meat from the south.
But hunting is not just about killing animals and filling stomachs. The process of the hunt and eating of our country food personifies what it means to be Inuit. It is on the land that our values and age-old knowledge are passed down from generation to generation. Generationsyoung and oldmeet on the land.
The wisdom of the land and process of the hunt teaches young Inuit to be patient, courageous, tenacious, bold under pressure, reflective to withstand stress, to focus and carry out a plan to achieve a goal. These are qualities and skills Inuit need to survive and flourish in the modern world, as well as the world of our parents and grandparents. Hunting and eating the animals we hunt are spiritual and cultural activities.
In recent decades there have been far-reaching political changesdomestic and internationalin the Arctic. Inuit have been quite successful in achieving land rights and self-government. The 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and 1980 National Interest Lands Conservation Act in the United States was followed by home rule for Greenland in 1979.
The last of four land claims agreements in northern Canada is soon-to-be-ratified. The Nunavut Territory was established through a 1993 land claims settlement that received front-page coverage in the New York Times.
Land claims and self-government agreements provide Inuit with institutions to promote sustainable developmentto meld the best of the old with the best of the new.
Indigenous peoples around the world are aware of what we have achieved so far, and what is going on in the Arctic. We are linked by an efficient and effective network. For example, ICC has worked with Mayan and Garifauna Indians in Belize promoting small scale economic development and capacity building. We have done the same thing for the last eight years with Indigenous peoples in northern Russia, where our fellow Inuit live.
Circumpolar Co-operation
Twenty years ago Inuit in Chukotka were not allowed out of the Soviet Union. Two empty chairs at ICC meetings were a reminder that national boundaries kept us apart. With the collapse of the former Soviet Union ideological confrontation in the Arctic has been replaced by co-operation. Inuit can travel visa-free between Provideniya in Chukotka and Nome in Alaska.
Circumpolar organizations were established in the 1990s to address the environment, culture, education, science and research, health, universities, and other topics. Inuit have particularly close relations with Sami in Scandinavia and with the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON). Politically, the Arctic is an exciting and innovative place. It is still possible to do things differently therea huge portion of the globe that is taking on the hue of a geopolitical region.
In 1996 the eight Arctic states established the Arctic Council, a high level forum of ministers of foreign affairs, to promote sustainable development. We sit at the same table as ministers, as do five other Arctic Indigenous peoples organizations. We are called permanent participants, a status in intergovernmental affairs that is unique, I think. Five European states are official observers to the council as are many non-governmental organizations. I have heard that China and Japan may soon apply for the same status. Russia currently chairs the council.
ICC was established in 1977. For almost thirty years we have promoted co-operation among and between states and Indigenous peoples in the Arctic. The Sami have been doing the same since the early 1950s! My point is that we have been political players on the international stage for some time. We engage in the politics of influence not the politics of protest. The Arctic Council is one of the key international institutions in which we operate.
I dont have time to go into details about the council, although we can do so through questions if you wish. Certainly we are faced with challenges in the council. We can speak but there are no guarantees that our voice is heard as we are now voting members.
Be that as it may, the council has completed first class technical work on transboundary contaminants and climate change. This work prompted the Governing Council of UNEP, in February 2003, to pass an Arctic resolution. Please have a look at it on UNEPs web site. This resolution reflects a key principlethe Arctic is the globes barometer of environmental health. I would add that Inuit are the mercury in that barometer.
I want now to mention two global issuestransboundary contaminants and climate changeof great importance in the Arctic, but which also show the need for global institutions, such as The World Bank Group, to look North.
Transboundary Contaminants
Until recently the Arctic was thought to be pristine. But in the late 1980s reconnaissance research in northern Canada showed that many Inuit women had levels of certain persistent organic pollutants (POPs)such as DDT and PCBin their blood and bodies well above those in women in the South, with worrying public health implications.
Used in industry and agriculture and released to the environment in tropical and temperate lands, some POPs were reaching the Arctic on air currents. Bioaccumulating and biomagnifying in the food web, particularly the marine food web, Inuit were ingesting POPs by eating seals, whales and walrus. POPs were passed to the unborn through the placenta, and to infants through breast milk.
Imagine how you would feel if you learned that country food that for generations had sustained you was slowly poisoning you!
A circumpolar contaminants assessment by the Oslo-based Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) of the Arctic Council was published in 1997. Endorsed by Arctic Council ministers, this assessment helped to persuade UNEP to sponsor global negotiations that resulted in the 2001 Stockholm Convention on POPs.
I was honoured to speak on behalf of a coalition of Arctic Indigenous peoples in all negotiating sessions and at side events. We made common cause with non-governmental organizations, in many countries. It is fair to say that Arctic perspectives and concerns pushed the process forward. Inuit and other Arctic Indigenous peoples made a real difference.
We pressed the eight Arctic states to work singly and collectively for a comprehensive and verifiable agreement to eliminate key POPs. It was not easy. The United States did not come fully on board until a meeting of Arctic Council ministers in Barrow, Alaska in October 2000. The Arctic provided the venue, and concerns about our health provided the angle, to engage the United States. There is a lesson here.
Have a look at the convention. It singles out the Arctic and its Indigenous communitiesthe only global convention to do so. The full story of negotiations and translating Arctic science into global policy is told in ICCs book Northern Lights Against POPs.
The first Conference of Parties to the Stockholm Convention takes place in May in Uruguay. I shall be there and, with friends and colleagues from the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, will present a case study of POPs in the blood and breast milk of four indigenous peoples in the Russian Arctic.
This research project replicates in Russia work completed in Canada in the early to mid 1990s. It was paid for by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), seven Arctic states, a Canadian foundation, and an environmental organization. Carried out by AMAP, RAIPON and agencies of the Government of Russia, this project illustrates the value of partnerships between Arctic Indigenous peoples and Arctic governments.
The United States provided little data for AMAPs 1997 assessment, but Alaskans have pressed more recently for a POPs research programme of their own modeled, in part, on Canadian approaches.
Climate Change
During the global POPs negotiations we characterized contaminants as a health and cultural as well as an environmental issue. Exactly the same is true for climate change.
In October 2000, the Arctic Council started an assessment of the social, economic, environmental, health, and cultural impacts of climate change in the circumpolar world. Ministers also asked for policy recommendations.
Chaired by Bob Corell of Harvard University and prepared by more than 300 scientists from 15 countries, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) was released last November to global interest and coverage. It includes many case illustrations and observations based on our traditional knowledge. Science and traditional knowledge in the Arctic are saying the same things: climate change is happening now, it is getting worse, it is causing environmental change, and northerners are trying to adapt to it already.
Inuit hunters and elders report:
*melting permafrost causing beach slumping and increased coastal erosion;
*longer sea-ice free seasons;
*new species of birds and fishbarn owls, robins, pin-tailed ducks and salmoninvading the region;
*invasion of mosquitoes and blackflies;
*unpredictable sea-ice conditions; and
*melting glaciers creating torrents in place of streams.
Inuit have lost through the sea-ice experienced and seasoned hunters traveling in areas formerly quite safe. It is now much more difficult to read the sea-ice. The environment is becoming much more unpredictable.
The ACIA projects massive depletion of multi-year sea-ice with a virtual ice-free Summer by the middle to the end of the century. The projected impacts of this, and I quote, include:
Marine species dependent on sea-ice including polar bears, ice-living seals, walrus, and some marine birds are very likely to decline, with some facing extinction; and
For Inuit, warming is likely to disrupt or even destroy their hunting and food sharing culture as reduced sea-ice causes the animals on which they depend to decline, become less accessible or possibly go extinct.
So, I think you understand why I suggest that climate change is a human and cultural issue. By divorcing Inuit from the natural environment we know so well, what will become of us? All of this is projected to come about within the lifetime of my grandson!
Arctic Council ministers endorsed an ACIA policy document that addresses mitigation, adaptation, research, observations, monitoring and modeling. It was very difficult to get states to agree to policy recommendations. Have a look at ICCs web site for the full story. I would point out, however, that all Arctic states, including the United States of America, agreed that timely, measured and concerted action.to address global emissions is required to address climate change in the Arctic.
Senior Arctic Officials meet in Siberia next week to chart ACIA follow-up.
We have used the ACIA in COPs to the climate change convention. That process is immersed in technical debate and has lost sight of a fundamental truthclimate change is a human issue, a family issue, a cultural issue. People across the globe are looking for leadership on climate change. Generally, citizens are ahead of their governments. I think this is very much the case in the United States.
Faced with the conclusions and key findings of the ACIA, it is clear to ICC that climate change as a result of emission of greenhouse gases threatens the future of we Inuit as a people. Our collective human rights to chart our own path in this rapidly modernizing world are being ignored and violated. This is why we have prepared and will soon submit a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
We want the commissioners to come to the Arctic to find out for themselves just what climate change means to Inuit. We dont take this step lightly. Inuit do not seek controversy. That is just not our way. But we will defend our culture and way of life. It is our aim to educate not criticize and to encourage not compel.
I have received encouraging messages and offers of help from around the world including many from citizens of the United States. I hope the petition process may result in formal amendment of the framework convention. We seek to include the Arctic-as-global-barometer and as a region particularly vulnerable to climate change, and to ensure the convention acknowledges climate change as a health and cultural issue. The Stockholm Convention is our precedent.
When speaking about climate change in 1997 James Wolfensohn noted:
Developing countries will suffer the most damage, and their poor will be at an even greater disadvantage. I see the Banks role in climate change as providing every opportunity to developing countries to benefit from the huge investment Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) must make in reducing climate change.
This quote could just as well apply to Inuit. In coming months we intend to work with the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and low-lying states. The most vulnerable regions need to work together. Certainly there is a role for the World Bank Group to promote such dialogue and I am interested in your thoughts how this might be done.
Conclusion
I have spoken at some length about the Arctic and global environmental issues. But I ask you to consider the implications of the coming of age of the Arctic in our ever more connected world. The Arctic bridges the United States and Russia, and North American and Europe.
For the most part, Inuit live in the developed world. Yet our circumstancesbirth and death rates, health, and income etc.are akin to the developing world. We have feet in both camps. In this sense we, the residents of the Arctic, can bridge perspectives that currently divide the world. We can help to bridge North and South. I hope this comment resonates with you. We are all connected and Climate Change connects us all. The Inuk hunter falling through the depleting ice is connected to the cars we drive, the disposable world we have become and industries we rely upon.
I have tried to show that what takes place in the Southemissions of POPs and greenhouse gaseshas great import in the Arctic. I hope the World Bank Group may think of ways and means to bring the Arctic together with the South.
Last year I appeared before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. I spoke to the committee about climate change, but I invite you to interpret my remarks more broadly. Let me end by repeating to you what I said to the committee.
what is happening in the Arctic is a snapshot of the future of the planet, and that, indeed, we are all connected. Climate change is a matter of survival of humanity as a whole. It is the most important global issue we face today. Protect the Arctic and we will save the planet.
