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Needless Barriers to the Inuit Way of Life
In their efforts to safeguard their way of life, economy, and culture, Inuit face challenges from many quarters. Not least among these are misguided policies of some national governments to restrict or prohibit trade in Arctic animal-related products. In this edition of Silarjualiriniq we present a speech concerning just such a policy: the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). This speech, delivered at an international conference in China by Scot Nickels, on behalf of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada and the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (Canada), was widely applauded, as was the call by Inuit for co-operative international action to promote sustainable use of wildlife.
The MMPA effectively bans the importation into the United States of marine mammal products; its unintended but predictable social and cultural consequences in northern Canada have been entirely negative. Families have found themselves under increasing financial and economic pressure as many hunters struggled to provide for their families. With the closing of markets came increasing suicide rates, particularly among male hunters. Did the United States Congress understand the implications of its actions or were Arctic human and social considerations shoved aside in the rough and tumble of politics on the Potomac and the need to accommodate influential animal rights' organizations?
The stark reality of the MMPA in the Arctic seems not to register on animal rights' organizations such as the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which continues to support the blanket trade prohibitions included in the legislation. This is ironic. The MMPA makes it more and more difficult for hunters to stay on the land, passing on their skills and environmental knowledge from one generation to the next. If Inuit are not out on the land, who will stand up for the Arctic environment?
The United States Marine Mammal Protection Act: Challenges to Inuit Sustainable Resource Use in Canada
Scot Nickels, Inuit Tapirisat of Canada
Over the thousands of years that Inuit have lived in what is now the Canadian North, they have been the custodians of these vast lands. Their relationship with the land, the creatures, and the environment has enabled them not only to survive, but to live a rich and vibrant life in a land that, to the outside observer, may seem harsh and forbidding.
The Inuit approach to the environment comes from their history and experience living day-to-day, season-to-season, and year-to-year. It has provided a concrete guide to living that has served them well for centuries and is still of crucial importance today. Inuit food in English it is called "country" food is still a staple for most, if not all, Inuit. The nutritional value gained from the consumption of seal meat, fat, and oil, for example, would be difficult perhaps impossible to replace with store-bought foods. But there is so much more to this interaction with marine and terrestrial animals than simply the nutritional benefits derived from the food they provide. Hunting, preparing, sharing, consuming and using Arctic animals binds Inuit as a people. Marine mammal hunting forms an essential part of Inuit cultural and spiritual identity; it helps give a sense of pride to individuals in communities who face many other challenges from the recent encroachments of "western" society. Yet the ability to carry on sustainable use practices has been greatly affected by decisions made far away from Inuit communities.
Inuit have fought hard to enable their way of life to continue: they have dedicated an enormous amount of time and effort negotiating land claim agreements and achieving constitutional recognition of Aboriginal rights. Claims have been settled in all Inuit regions except Labrador where the process is still under way. Under these agreements, clear recognition has been given to Inuit wildlife harvesting rights. Specific features in these agreements have been designed to achieve the basic goals of protecting the Arctic environment and ensuring the sustainable use of wildlife and Inuit harvesting activities and practices into the future.
Including among these features is the establishment of organizations, jointly appointed by Inuit and government, to manage Arctic wildlife populations. The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board established by the 1993 Nunavut Final Agreement and the Fisheries Joint Management Committee created by the 1984 Inuvialuit Final Agreement are two notable examples of co-management bodies reflect the integrated approach Inuit take to the management of wildlife. They have genuine decision-making authority over wildlife management in a huge area of the North. Co-management bodies can set harvesting quotas; have authority over the designation, management and recovery of endangered species; designate conservation areas; and approve plans for habitat conservation. The Inuit-designated representatives on these bodies bring to the table the traditional knowledge of Inuit communities, drawn from their close links to local hunters and trappers organizations and other Inuit organizations and their relationship with the land and sea.
Even though systems for wildlife management with meaningful Inuit participation are in place across the Canadian Arctic, significant challenges remain. I would like to focus on one of those challenges. With regard to sustainable use, there is perhaps no better example of how outside forces can negatively affect the ability of the Inuit to carry on their way of life and to grow and develop in areas compatible with their beliefs and traditions than the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act.
But let me first quickly illustrate the Inuit view on hunting by using a specific example, the seal hunt. The hunter shows respect for the natural world and for the seal by taking only what is needed. The food the seal provides is shared within the community, sometimes through a community feast or by giving it to elders and others who cannot hunt. All of the seal is used, and different products are made by different people in the community be it a pair of sealskin kamiks, seal oil, misiraq, into which is dipped dry meat, or ujjaq, fermented seal flippers, considered a delicacy. Hunting, preparing, and sharing animals in this way binds families and communities together and shows respect for the animal populations on which Inuit depend.
The Inuit perspective on the hunting of animals continues to form their approach to harvesting and management issues. Their interdependent relationship with living things is reflected in their systems for wildlife management, the priorities of their political organizations, and their continued dependence upon the land from which they come.
Unfortunately, however, the same values do not appear to guide those who have interfered with the Inuit ability to benefit from Arctic animals and co-exist with these animals in a sustainable fashion.
The interference has come from a number of sources over the years, including the laws, regulations and polices passed by governments lacking a full understanding of the impacts their actions would have on Inuit, and through the active interventions of animal-rights organizations that, at their worst, have demonstrated a complete disregard for the Inuit way of life.
The first area of impact the ignorance or disinterest of government decision makers is, thankfully, largely a thing of the past. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but thanks to Inuit land claim agreements our struggles are now mainly to educate and alert Canadian government officials to their obligations under these agreements.
The second and major barrier to the Inuit ability to carry on with their way of life is not so easily surmounted. For there is a segment of southern, or "western", society that neither believes in, nor tries to understand the principle of sustainable use of wildlife. Instead, its members tend to believe that wildlife must be protected, not used except perhaps, in a narrow, so-called subsistence sense. In many cases, these people feel they have the unilateral right to proscribe the limits of subsistence hunting without regard for our systems of co-management. They also use this narrow approach to influence decision makers in government and the general public through mega-dollar media campaigns against which we have limited resources to counteract with our own campaign to educate the public about Inuit sustainable practices.
Their campaigns, despite the exceptions they claim to make for the plight of indigenous peoples, have caused incredible hardship in our communities over the past thirty years. They are well-funded, appeal to a segment of the population that often doesn't get the other side of the story, and use all the instruments they can to shift public opinion to their side.
What these organizations do well is work internationally on barriers that have great effect in our small communities. For example, the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act, passed in 1972, involved the active lobbying of the Humane Society of the United States, and totally eliminated all trade to the United States for Canadian Inuit in marine mammal products within 60 days of its passage. Yet Canadian Inuit have traded with the Inupiat of Alaska and, for that matter, with Inuit in what is now Russia and Greenland, long before our contact with Europeans. To this day, any import of Canadian Inuit marine mammal products into the United States results in the importer being charged with an offence equivalent to the importation of narcotics.
An incident that reveals the striking inadequacy of the Marine Mammal Protection Act occurred early in summer 1999, when seven Inuit marionettes from the community of Pelly Bay were sent to a Rhode Island puppet master for repairs. The marionettes made with locally available material such as ring seal skins, caribou and musk-ox hair from non- endangered species and from bone from beached beluga whales, were to be used by Inuit elders to teach their children Inuit history.
Although these puppets were made from animals abundant in the North and were intended for educational purposes only, not for sale, the elders from Pelly Bay were viewed as committing a statutory offence under the US Marine Mammal Protection Act. Because they contained materials from seal and whale, materials banned from crossing the United States border under the Act, the puppets were seized at the border and slated to be destroyed. Various forensic studies were conducted to authenticate the material's origins and US authorities set in motion the process of pressing charges against the community of Pelly Bay.
Pelly Bay is a tiny Inuit village located in the heart of Canada's newest territory, Nunavut. It is known as one of the most traditional Inuit villages in the Canada Arctic. The people there call themselves Netsilik (people of the seal) and their life-style revolves around their ability to harvest and use seals.
This incident begs the question: Why are the Inuit of Pelly Bay being harassed and threatened by the most powerful nations on earth? The problem can best be explained by considering the ringed seal: Inuit hunters annually take about 50,000 of an estimated 2.5 million ringed seals in the Canadian Arctic. The MMPA has not stopped the Inuit hunt of marine mammals, but has limited access to important markets and in some cases compromised the Inuit desire and ability to ensure that the entire animal is used.
In the case of seals, the entire animal is used for food, while by-products such as skin and bone are used for clothing and arts and crafts. Today, the MMPA decreases Inuit ability to access markets and to ensure that all parts of hunted animals serve some purpose.
A stated goal of the MMPA is the maintenance of marine mammal population levels at what is called their "optimum sustainable production." Such a goal implies that a sustainable harvest of marine mammals would be a tool that is consistent with the Act. This, of course, is not the case. In fact, the passage of the MMPA has had two significant effects. The first is the closure of an important market for marine mammal products. The second is more insidious. The MMPA and some of its offshoots have created the impression that marine mammal populations are threatened and the perception that products of marine mammals are ethically undesirable to Americans. Saving seals is good: Killing them is bad.
The marionettes are not an isolated target for custom officials. Canadian Inuit crossing the border into the United States frequently have their personal sealskin clothing confiscated and burned.
These polices and campaigns, make it difficult for hunters to obtain the money necessary to equip themselves for further hunting. Their identity and self-respect are therefore at risk. The decline in seal hunting has reduced opportunities to pass knowledge from generation to generation because families spend less time on the land. It is out on the land, in camps away from the communities, where traditional social and cultural values are reinforced.
When one undertakes massive public relations campaigns, such as the one against commercial sealing, messages about indigenous peoples and their rights and cultures inevitably get lost in the shuffle. The issue at stake here is not one of subsistence vs. commercial harvesting. Inuit see subsistence hunting and the commercial opportunities for self-sufficiency as one and the same.
Inuit have learned much from such experiences; that is why land claim agreements define and guarantee many Inuit rights. But Inuit are still highly susceptible to decisions made far from home. The US Congress has an opportunity to put things right this year, as it considers reauthorizing and possibly amending the MMPA. The goal of Canadian Inuit is clear: Open trade with the United States in products from non-endangered species of animals. Since the MMPA was adopted, Canada and the United States have signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which governs the sustainable use and international trade of all wildlife and plants for more than 145 nations.
The MMPA, unlike CITES is not based on credible science or accepted management principles. Moreover, it violates the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Inuit want Congress to use the reauthorization debate to bring American law into line with its international treaty obligations. Perhaps then Inuit in Pelly Bay and elsewhere in Canada can resume a viable and traditional way of life.
Inuit will continue to fight for their communities wherever they are threatened whether locally, nationally or internationally. We will persevere in our attempts to dismantle existing barriers. Trade barriers or barriers that have been put up through ignorance or intolerance must come down. We will continue to educate those who do not understand and work together with those whose objectives are compatible with ours. Most importantly, though, we will continue to practice and promote sustainable use of resources in Inuit communities and throughout the one-third of Canada we co-manage.
This is the Inuit story. I expect many of you have similar stories involving different species and different policies. You may soon find yourselves victims of similar circumstances, where your ability to conduct sustainable resource use is compromised by outside forces who know nothing, or care little, about your culture or way of life. What affects us today may affect you tomorrow. Those of us in this situation must tell our stories, and we must work together to create a powerful force to maintain our sustainable resource-use systems. This is important to our cultures, societies, economies, and our human and environmental health.
Canada and the United States recently exchanged formal positions on the MMPA
Canada Asks
A US Congressional Research Service report of April 6, 1999, acknowledges that the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) prohibits trade in marine mammal products regardless of species' conservation status and therefore appears to be inconsistent with US WTO obligations. For example, under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), neither ringed nor harp seals are considered threatened or endangered in any way and therefore no monitoring or trade restrictions are justified on the movement of products from either species. Yet, under the MMPA, both species are restricted, so that no import of these species is allowed into the United States. We also note that the MMPA would appear to be in violation of the national treatment provisions of the WTO by allowing domestic production in Alaska and commercial sales in the US of products which are otherwise banned by the MMPA while denying the same rights to native inhabitants in Canada and other countries. What action is the US Government contemplating to bring the MMPA into conformity with its obligations under the WTO?
The United States Replies
We do not agree with Canada's suggestion that there is a conflict between the MMPA and our obligations under the WTO. This law does not prevent the importation of ringed seal or harp seal products. The MMPA authorizes persons seeking to import marine mammal products to apply to the Secretary of Commerce for a waiver of the statutory moratorium on importation. This law applies equally to US citizens and foreign nationals seeking to import marine mammal products for commercial purposes. Prior to issuing a permit for importation of such seal products, the Secretary must determine that the animals were taken "in accordance with sound principles of resource conservation" and the nation of origin has a "program for taking marine mammals" that is "consistent with the provisions and policies of the [MMPA]." We find hard to understand the implication of Canada's question that countries should only engage in conservation actions once species are already threatened or endangered. |
