Speech Given by Ms. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President of Inuit Circumpolar Conference (Canada) and Vice-President of Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Arctic Connections: Local/Global Linkages for Sustainable Development
United Nations, New York City
February 6, 2002
Good evening. My name is Sheila Watt-Cloutier. I am president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference Canada. I come from Kuujjuaq in Nunavik--northern Quebec--but live now in Iqaluit in Canada's newest northern territory--Nunavut.
Six Indigenous peoples organizations representing Inuit, Sami, Athabaskans, Gwich'in, Aleuts, and Russian Indigenous peoples have "permanent participant" status in the eight-nation Arctic Council. The council has five programmes. I am co-vice-chair of the sustainable development programme.
In the council, Indigenous peoples sit at the same table as the states. We intervene and debate issues, and promote consensus. We have all learned that co-operation between us, exemplified by the council, leads to better decision-making and better decisions, particularly for northerners. It took some time to persuade states to accept Indigenous peoples into the council, but it is not controversial now. Inuit, Athabaskans, Sami, and other Indigenous peoples are becoming the public face of the council. This is as it should be.
I want to offer my thanks to Peter Stenlund and his team from Helsinki and Rovaniemi. The Finnish chairmanship of the council has been particularly efficient and effective.
We are here in New York at the UN, to chart a course of action towards implementing global sustainable development, these efforts will culminate in Johannesburg, so it is apt to ask: what of the Arctic in the broader world?
Indigenous peoples everywhere face many challenges in finding their place in the new world order of globalization. A place that affords our peoples self-respect and security, and one in which we contribute to the well being of others.
Our region was virtually ignored in the debate leading up to and culminating at Rio de Janiero in 1992. The Arctic is not mentioned in Agenda 21. Yet, in the last 10 years Arctic issues have climbed up the political agenda, in part, as the South seeks our energy and mineral resources, contemplates Arctic shipping to link western Europe, eastern Asia, and North America, and as human health and environmental concerns such as persistent organic pollutants and climate change are framed in a global context. We welcome this attention to these issues of crucial importance to us in the Arctic. But it is also important that the council and the permanent participants frame and stimulate debate so that our traditional knowledge, perspectives, expectations, and recommendations on economic, cultural, social, and environmental issues are clear.
I detect a welcome receptivity by the international community and particularly within UNEP, under the admirable leadership of Klaus Topfer, to listen to our concerns, viewpoints, and recommendations on POPs. The World Summit on Sustainable Development is an important opportunity for us all. Inuit have much to give the global community and also much to learn from experiences elsewhere. What key messages should we convey, bearing in mind that there will likely be a split along North--South lines?
When indigenous peoples work in isolation, many challenges are insurmountable and many common goals unattainable. But through partnerships and accepting differentiated responsibilities we believe sustainable development is achievable at the local, regional and global scale. New and meaningful partnerships are at the heart of moving sustainable development forward in our homeland and elsewhere.
Canada took a unique approach to developing their WSSD National Report. They commissioned the report to be prepared at arms length to government and organized a cross section of civil society to guide the process. Inuit were part of this difficult, unique and courageous process. To further support the importance of the Arctic within Canada, the government also commissioned ICC to prepare three case illustrations of how Inuit have moved SD forward: 1) through our POPs work toward the Stockholm Convention, 2) self government in the new Territory of Nunavut, and indeed 3) the Arctic Council itself.
For Arctic residents to really have a constructive role in the WSSD process, we have tried to single out areas of action on SD and areas where we can move the process even further.
First, we can show Indigenous and non-Indigenous people living together and working together through Home rule in Greenland, the Nunavut Territory in Canada, Sami Parliaments in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and borough governments in Alaska. Self-determination by northern Indigenous peoples is being achieved in the Arctic through land claim and self-government negotiations, although this is still a work in progress, particularly in northern Russia.
We talk of a new globalized world, but rather than coming together many of our actions create an increasingly fractured world where violence and aggression can breed. In the Arctic we can point to progress through negotiation and political agreements between states and Indigenous peoples. The council itself is an example of this. In the aftermath of September 11th we can inject a compassionate and hopefully compelling note of hope into the debate. Inuit will work with all for peaceful change; we motivate change through engaging in the politics of influence rather than the politics of protest.
Second, we must use the Arctic as a barometer or indicator of the global effects of climate change, ozone depletion, and long-range transboundary contaminants. The Arctic can be thought of as the "canary in the coal mine", a global early warning system. Late for us in the arctic as we have been living with POPs for several decades, and climate change is something we are living with today, it is not a future prediction for us. We must not, however, portray the Arctic and its residents as powerless victims of global forces. Quite the contrary. We must show the Arctic as a culturally diverse region, home to numerous Indigenous peoples, and an emerging geopolitical region of growing importance to the world.
Let us press the case for early ratification and effective implementation of the global POPs convention. This convention is important. It operationalizes the "precautionary principle" and it singles out the Arctic and reflects the excellent work of the council's Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP).
These contaminants threaten our health and erode our way of life. Our cultural heritage, our soul and our physical well being is dependent on the animals we hunt and eat. If we fear the contaminants in the very food that keeps us whole spiritually, culturally and physically we will not hunt. If we don't hunt we will lose our culture and that which gives us the strength to negotiate these turbulent and precarious times. Only Canada among the Arctic states has ratified the convention. All Arctic states need to do so if we are singly and as a council to encourage other countries to follow suit. I was encouraged by President Bush's commitment last year to present the Stockholm Convention to the Senate for ratification. In Canada, we are encouraging Prime Minister Chretien to attend the summit and to speak to this issue.
Finally, let us bring forward Arctic perspectives on global climate change. All climate models predict a greater warming for the Arctic than for the rest of the globe with potentially severe impacts on residents. So far the Arctic seems to have been discounted in global climate change debates, for it is sparsely populated. The popular global image of climate change in the North is thinner and fewer polar bears.
We should use the summit to change this image. Let us give climate change in the North a human face--an Inuk patiently waiting for a seal to surface on the sea ice or flow edge; a Gwich'in hunter pursuing caribou near the Old Crow river; or a Nenets family herding reindeer on the Yamal Peninsula. Climate change is not just an environmental issue. It raises fundamental questions about the continuation of our cultures and ways of life. We must communicate this reality to governments and non-governmental organizations around the globe. We must show them that what they do affects us, and that what happens to us, in turn, affects them. Hugh Brody, a well-known British anthropologist, is right when he says:
Without the hunter-gatherers, humanity is diminished and cursed; with them, we can achieve a more complete version of ourselves.
The African region brought forward the phrase, "People, Planet, Prosperity", some suggest this as a possible slogan for Johannesburg, and to us this is appealing.
AMAP's 1997 assessment enabled Arctic states to stress northern concerns in the global POPs negotiations. The council's climate impact assessment, to be delivered to ministers in 2004, should be similarly used in post-Kyoto Conferences of the Parties.
Important global conventions and agreements were signed at Rio de Janiero, aiming to promote sustainable development. The summit in South Africa will be very differentour job is to chart a clear, achievable path of action forward.
Let us make sure that Arctic concerns and perspectives, particularly those of the region's Indigenous peoples, are included in the eventual outcomes endorsed by ministers in Johannesburg. We have already moved some way in this direction through the UN/ECE ministerial statement adopted in Geneva last September.
In December 2000 I attended the final session of the global POPs negotiations in Johannesburg. With Paul Okalik, Premier of the Government of Nunavut, and representatives of some of the permanent participants we met privately with Nelson Mandela. We talked of our struggles and challenges and how we had drawn strength from his experiences. He told us of his unexpected landing in the Arctic in the early 1990s, and how surprised he was that Inuit knew of him and his challenges on his life's journey!
The distance between our homes and lives in the Arctic, and his in South Africa, melted as we talked. He asked us to come back and talk again and we will later this summer. His spirit should motivate us as we bring the Arctic dimension to the attention f nations gathered at the world summit.
Nakurmiik/Thank You for the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of the permanent participants of the Arctic Council.
