The ICC General Assembly in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik

Lighting of the Qulliq

Every four years Inuit delegates from around the circumpolar Arctic convene in a general assembly to discuss pressing policy issues, to chart the agenda and future of ICC including election of officers, to renew personal and political ties, and to celebrate Inuit culture and achievements. In August 2002, Kuujjuaq in Nunavik (northern Quebec) hosted the ICC general assembly and the 700 visitors this entailed. Held in a brand new conference centre, the event was a remarkable success and reflected very well on Kuujjuaq. Delegates from Greenland, Alaska, Chukotka, and Canada mingled with visitors and guests from other countries. Debate was lively and interesting. Paul Okalik spoke of the progress of Nunavut, Nellie Cournoyea of the successes of the land claims movement and ongoing difficulties of implementing land claims agreements, Sheila Watt-Cloutier of the trials and tribulations of promoting sustainable development. Aqqaluk Lynge, outgoing ICC President, spoke of the need for Inuit solidarity, political accomplishments, and tasks ahead particularly with reference to the recently established UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. At the end of the week delegates endorsed a broad ranging political declaration to guide the work of ICC over the next four years. This double issue of Silarjualiriniq prints the Kuujjuaq Political Declaration and the well-received speech delivered by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the newly elected chair of ICC.

Speech Delivered by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President ICC Canada and Vice-President ICC International, at the 9th General Assembly and 25th Anniversary of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference

Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Canada
August 14, 2002

People continue to struggle with the definition of sustainable development and, more importantly, how to implement and achieve it. Countries and peoples all over the world are looking for ways and means of making economic development environmentally and socially sustainable. This is a debate in which Inuit can enlighten the world. As Inuit, we think in holistic ways. We know that everything is interrelatedthe threads of our lives are woven into a garment that is inherently sustainable. Our culture reflects our values, spirit, economy, and health. Our land and natural resources sustain us, and the health of these resources affects our health. If we use and develop these resources with respect, our environment will remain healthy and so will we. The process of the hunt is invaluable, through it we learn what is required to survive and how to gain wisdomthe key to living and acting sustainably.

Sustainable development requires holistic thinking and acting. This is not something new to us. By sustaining our culture we defend and celebrate our way of life, and protect the environment upon which our way of life depends. If we are spiritually healthy as a people we are sustainable as a culture. Suicides, alcohol and substance abuse, and spousal violence reflect the pressures upon us from all sides. We must not let these pressures erode our spiritual health and our cultural sustainability. To withstand and to respond to these pressures we need to look within our culture, for that is where we will find the strength to carry us forward as a people.

Sustainability has three pillars: economy, health and environment. We can see each of these pillars through our relationship with the animals upon which we dependwhales, caribou, fish, and many additional

Sheila Watt-Cloutier In-coming Chair

species. I want to use the seal, which is particularly important to many Inuit regions, as an example of this relationship.

The age-old relationship between Inuit and the seal is now affected by external events. The health of the seal is, in part, determined by global environmental factors including climate change and contaminants.

Hunting the seal is hindered as a result of climate change. Eating the seal is questioned because of the contaminants it contains. Some governments refuse to import sealskins and other marine mammal products, depriving hunters of cash they need to buy equipment to go hunting in the first place. These external events erode our relationship with the seal, threaten our relationship with the land, and devalue a proven path to wisdom and sustainability.

The seal is being pushed to the periphery of our life. We need to bring it back to the center. I am wearing a sealskin vest. This is not just a piece of clothing. It has become a political statementa symbol of our human rights. This vest shows who we are, what we value, what we stand for, and even how we intend to make our way in the world. Traditional ways of making a living should be preserved as an element of local economies. We can find ways to support and expand this economy. Nunavik Arctic Foods has developed caribou pate for gourmet markets in southern Canada. The Inuvialuit Development Corporation produces high quality sweaters made of muskox wool that are very popular in Japan. Labrador Inuit export Labradorite to Italy where it is used for marble fireplaces and floor covering. Nunavut Inuit are exploring Omega-3 seal oil capsules with other countries.

Nevertheless, these developments alone simply dont provide the standard of living that most people want. Therefore we have been developing the range of resources available in our homelandsoil, gas, minerals, and hydropower. How do we do this sustainably? We have been engaged in long-term planning that is ensuring these developments are environmentally and socially sustainable and that Inuit receive significant benefits. In developing these natural resources we must reflect on the values, wisdom, and perspectives of the hunter, and incorporate them into our decision-making. This is an important task for the institutions established through our land claims agreements.

Two young children throat singing.

The spirit of the hunters and the skilled crafts workers is essentially the same as the spirit of the entrepreneur. Community-based economic development draws upon the spirit of a mutually supportive community, which, itself, depends upon the skills of its hunters and crafts people. A productive spirit is the basis for economic development. Our hunting culture teaches values of courage, patience, tenacity, respect, good judgment and, ultimately, wisdom. The outside world does not fully appreciate that these character building and decision-making skills that are learned on the land are very transferable and in fact required to survive in the modern world.

The sealskin vest I am wearing is the result of Inuit carrying out their economy and livelihood. By doing this and doing it sustainably, we are setting a positive example to the world. When someone buys a sealskin vest like this they can rest assured that the seal was killed with respect and that buying and wearing the vest supports a way of life that epitomizes sustainability. Monday nights fashion show conveys exactly the same messageInuit traditions have a vital place in the modern world. I was very proud of our young people that night and very impressed by their creative power. They provided us with an example of how to balance the old and the new, and how to find new meanings in old traditions. We need to find more ways to do this in order to address the social issues that many speakers have discussed in the last few days. I congratulate Vicky Okpik, Vicky Gordon, and Maggie Peters on their success.

The world itself is in desperate need of these same values. But many in the world dont understand the true nature of sustainability. To them, environment is solely to be preserved and wild animals are solely to be protected. They cut out environment from the sustainable development equation, and so cant solve the equation. They think narrowlyin categories and boxes, separating thingsnot holistically, as required for sustainable development. This is the fundamental problem with animal rights organizations. They cannot see the inseparable link between animals and our culture. They dont see Inuit as a people behind the animals they wish to save. In fact, the world has come to know the wildlife of the Arctic more than its peoples, in part because of smart marketing strategies by corporations such as Coca Cola promoting their products with images of Polar bears playing with sealsan unlikely combination.

It is ten years since the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro endorsed sustainable development. Yet barriers to the sustainable Inuit hunting economy are still embedded in some laws based on emotion rather than traditional knowledge and science. There are over two million ringed seals in the Canadian north. Canadian Inuit harvest about 50,000 per year. That we cannot export sealskin jackets and vests, and other high-value marine mammal products, to certain markets is contrary to principles of sustainable development that some governments have endorsed and urge on others.

The meat and muktak from the Bowhead whale taken yesterday in Igloolik will be shared among many people. The baleen and bone will be used by artists. Nothing will be wasted. This is the essence of sustainability.

As many leaders in this room know, it is very difficult, but not impossible, to educate decision-makers in the South about the realities of the North. In two weeks I will be in Johannesburg, South Africa attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development as a member of Canadas official delegation. Many people in this room will be there. Our purpose is to use the summit to share what sustainable development means and requires, and why the Arctic and Inuit are important globally.

The Arctic was ignored at the Earth Summit, but that wont be the case in Johannesburg. More and more countries recognize that the Arctic is an indicator and barometer of the health of the globe. This is most evident as a result of climate change, long-range transport of contaminants into our food web and the loss of biodiversity. Increasingly, what happens in the world happens first in the Arctic. Our traditional knowledge is needed to monitor and express the health of the Arctic, and Inuit are needed to interpret their knowledge to the benefit of all.

Aqqaluk Lynge, outgoing president.

The Arctic Council can play an important role in opening-up opportunities for us to achieve our sustainable development goals and showing why the Arctic and its Indigenous peoples are important globally. In Greenland and northern Canada the sealing issue raises passionate concerns, as seal harvesting is sustainable and provides badly needed economic benefits to our communities. ICC continues to press the Arctic Council to promote implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity in the circumpolar Arctic. This convention requires governments to incorporate traditional ecological knowledge in national decision-making. Indigenous peoples and Arctic nations have much to share with other countries on this topic. I am co-vice chair of the sustainable developmentworking group of the eight-nation Arctic Council about which Peter Stendlund, the Chair, spoke on Monday and as we have just heard from Mary Simon. We are injecting Inuit and community perspectives on sustainability into this working group, linking the local with the international. Our objective is to open minds so that others can see the value inherent in who we are and what we do. We have much to offer. We are hunters, but also engineers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers. Our diversity is anchored in our culture and traditions. The working group is carrying out many projects including telemedicine, children and youth, and capacity building. The Government of Canada has generously offered to fund a secretariat for the working group, and Mary Simon, deserves real credit for this. The stage is set for us to use the Arctic Council to promote our vision and perspective of sustainable development. As we move forward into the modernizing world, we need to use and reintegrate many of our traditions and values into our lives, not only to promote our own health, but to help the world take a good look at itself. The world can surely use Inuit wisdom and enlightenment, not because we are the only people that hold solutions, but because of our close and ancient connection with our culture, traditions, and environment, we have not lost the real focus to sustainability, and our conscience has not been numbed by the need to solely make a dollar.

Two weeks ago, Paul Okalik reminded us of our core values on the most important long-term issue facing Inuitthe impacts in the North of climate changethe ultimate threat to sustainable development. At the annual meeting of Canadas provincial and territorial leaders the Premier of Alberta urged all to reject the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emission of greenhouse gases that cause climate change, arguing that to ratify would destroy Albertas economy, preventing it from sending taxes to Ottawa for national redistribution. Paul

noted that he and his children had earlier that week been walking outside Pangnirtung and had been unable to cross a stream, swollen into a river, by a melting glacier. In challenging Albertas position, Paul said:

Our goal is to be self-reliant and to be as prosperous as Alberta and to rely on our resources, our own resources. Our custom is to pass on our knowledge, our traditional knowledge, to our children, and you cannot put a price on that. So you can keep your money for one.

I was inspired by what Paul said as his words resonated truth for me. He did not negate financial prosperity for the Inuit. I understood his words to mean that traditional values are the foundation for sustainable financial prosperity and they should not be compromised at any cost. I want to end with a quote from Robert Peary, the famous American Arctic explorer, in Ken Harpers book Give me my Fathers Body. I used this quote in my speech in Stockholm when the global POPs convention was being signed by 120 countries. Peary wrote:

I have often been asked: Of what use are Eskimos to the world? They are too far removed to be of any value for commercial enterprises; and furthermore, they lack ambition. They have no literature; nor properly speaking, any art. They value life only as does a fox, or a bear, purely by instinct. But let us not forget that these people, trustworthy and hardy, will yet prove their value to mankind.

Indeed, we have and continue to prove ourselves to the world by adding value to the many challenges the globe is facing. Though small in numbers compared the world of billions we continue to exert influence beyond all proportion to our numbers.

Nakurmiik, Thank You.

Inuit Circumpolar Conference

ICC defends the rights and furthers the interests of Inuit in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Chukotka the far east of the Federation of Russia. Established in 1977, ICC maintains national offices in the four countries and enjoys official observer status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. ICCs chair is Sheila Watt-Cloutier of Greenland. Noted for its efforts to conserve and protect the environment and to promote sustainable development, ICC also defends and promotes the human rights of Inuit, the Arctics original inhabitants.

Making a Contribution to ICC (Canada)

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ICC Canada Inc. Board of Directors

Duane Smith Violet Ford Jose Kusugak Cathy Towtongie Pita Aatami William Barbour Nellie Cournoyea Veronica Dewar Adamie Padlayat

President, Inuit Circumpolar Conference (Canada) Vice-President and Council Member President, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Vice-President, ICC (Canada) President, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated President, Makivik Corporation President, Labrador Inuit Association President, Inuvialuit Regional Corporation President, Pauktuutit (ex officio) President, National Inuit Youth Council (ex officio)

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ISSN: 1488-0490