{"id":1481,"date":"2011-11-09T14:47:10","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T19:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/?p=1481"},"modified":"2026-02-09T14:57:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T19:57:01","slug":"shipping-indigenous-languages-among-initiatives-at-arctic-council-meeting-in-northern-sweden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/press-releases\/shipping-indigenous-languages-among-initiatives-at-arctic-council-meeting-in-northern-sweden\/","title":{"rendered":"Shipping & indigenous languages among initiatives at Arctic Council meeting in Northern Sweden"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\r\n\r\nLule\u00e5, Sweden \u2013 9 November 2011 \u2013 The Senior Arctic Officials (SAOs) ended their 2-day meeting today endorsing several initiatives important to Inuit.\r\n\r\nThe president of the Canadian office of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) said he was pleased that two of the projects, which will be headed by Inuit, had strong support.\r\n\r\nDuane Smith said ICC\u2019s multi-year proposal to work with linguists and other indigenous peoplesin assessing, monitory, and promoting the indigenous languages of the Arctic is the \u201ckind ofhuman-focused initiatives we need more of at the Arctic Council\u201d. The SAOs are the government officials who take care of Arctic Council matters between biennial meetings of the 8 Arctic ministers of foreign affairs. ICC is one of 6 indigenous peoples\u2019 organizations that has \u201cpermanent participant\u201d status at the Arctic Council, and participates directly and actively at meetings such as this.\r\n\r\nMr. Smith added, \u201cwe will collaborate with academics, as their linguistic expertise is important, but Inuit under ICC will lead this project\u201d with full support of the 8 Arctic states and with assistancefrom the other permanent participants. \u201cWe are happy that Canada has been very supportive of this languages work and that the USA\u2019s National Science Foundation has indicated theirwillingness to entertain the possibility of significant funding for the project\u201d.\r\n\r\nThe ICC Canada president was also pleased with the support given to ICC\u2019s proposal looking at the impact of Arctic shipping on Inuit. In particular, Mr. Smith said \u201cwe will bring together Inuit from Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Greenland to discuss the implications of the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA) and ask them what we should do with the AMSA\u2019s findings and recommendations\u201d. This study of shipping in the Arctic is \u201cextremely valuable for Inuit, as we area maritime people and will be the first to bear the brunt of shipping mistakes and possibledisasters\u201d. On the other hand, Arctic shipping, added Mr. Smith, \u201ccan and should serve Inuit as well\u201d. As part of this Arctic Council project, ICC will interview hunters to determine how they usethe sea ice and how tomorrow\u2019s shipping projections may affect them.\r\n\r\nThe Arctic Council\u2019s SAOs in Lule\u00e5 also discussed and, in some cases, endorsed other initiatives including, among others, Arctic biodiversity, Arctic change, marine oil pollution, ocean acidification, reindeer herding, marine and aviation transportation, and the upcoming International Polar Year conference to be held in Montreal next year. Finally, the SAOs and indigenous leaders discussed the implications of the first-ever legally-binding agreement signed by Arctic Council states, the Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement.\r\n\r\nContact:\r\nCarole Simon, ICC Canada\r\nTel: + 1 613 563 2642\r\nEmail: csimon@inuitcircumpolar.com\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-31","category-press-releases"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987515328,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481\/revisions\/987515328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}