Download COMMUNITIES AT RISK? Tool 2, Activity 8 Greenland Defends

COMMUNITIES AT RISK?
Tool  2, Activity 8
Greenland Defends Offshore Drilling
June 29, 2010
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/06/29/inuit-greenland-drilling.html
The premier of Greenland says Inuit in the circumpolar world should respect his government's decision to drill for
oil and gas in Davis Strait.
Premier Kuupik Kleist made the remark during the Inuit Circumpolar Council's 11th general assembly, which runs
this week in Nuuk, Greenland. Inuit officials from Canada, the United States and Russia, as well as Greenland, are
at the five-day event.
Addressing the assembly's 65 delegates on Monday, Kleist responded to public concerns about his government's
recent approval of Cairn Energy's plans to start drilling next month on two exploratory wells off Greenland's west
coast, in the Davis Strait between Greenland and Baffin Island in Nunavut.
"The exploitation of our enormous riches in oil and mineral resources is indisputably the most promising and real
potential for a greater degree of economic self-sufficiency," Kleist said, speaking in Greenlandic, an Inuit language.
Not seeking 'quick cash'
While Greenland remains part of Denmark, it has been working towards independence. Last year, Greenland
assumed powers of self-governance that include control of the island's natural resources.
But Kleist said Greenland's predominantly Inuit population will not let big oil companies simply move in, but will
instead ensure
Inuit are actively involved in development.
"Let me assure you of my government's and my own personal refusal to compromise the environment for quick
cash," he said.
Akkaluk Lynge, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in Greenland, said he is confident that Inuit concerns will
be considered before any offshore oil or gas production ever goes ahead.
"I think the premier said very clearly that he wants to institute a hearing process where [the Inuit Circumpolar
Council] is invited," Lynge said.
Environmental concerns remain
But some Inuit delegates say they remain worried about the potential of an offshore oil disaster, citing the ongoing
massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
"What we're concerned about is how it's going to impact the environment and the animals," said Okalik Eegeesiak,
president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association in Nunavut's Baffin Island region.
Many Inuit, including those in Canada and the U.S., still rely on land and sea animals as their main food source.
"Please leave the ocean alone, because this is where our food chain begins," said George Edwardson, an Inupiat
delegate from Alaska.
"Once you destroy that, then your ability to feed yourself from the ocean will end."
Labrador Inuit banned uranium mining
Energy and mineral exploration is also an issue for Inuit in northern Labrador, where potential uranium resources
have been identified.
Despite that potential, officials with Labrador's Nunatsiavut government imposed a three-year moratorium on
uranium mining in 2008, while a plan is being developed to ensure the environment and the people are protected.
"When big industry comes, they come. Many times they don't go away, especially if they see a resource that's
exploitable," said William Barbour, the Nunatsiavut government's natural resources minister.
"Many times you just have to deal with them and make sure you have the best environmental protection available."
However, the Nunatsiavut uranium mining moratorium has not been without controversy. Last week, residents in
Postville, N.L., called on the Inuit government to end the ban immediately, saying it has created economic
hardship in the community.
The issue of industrial development is expected to remain a hot topic at this week's Inuit Circumpolar Council
assembly.
COMMUNITIES AT RISK?
Tool  2, Activity 8
Where Warmth is a Threat
By Catherine Heart
May 11, 2009
http://tyglobalist.org/index.php/20090511202/Features/Where-Warmth-is-A-Threat.html
In late July 2005, the skies above Canada’s arctic region lit up as they never had before. The inhabitants of
Iqaluit, Nunavut, rushed to their roofs to take in a peculiar show of lightning and thunder. Those who knew the
significance of the lights — that they hailed the city’s first recorded thunderstorm — urged their neighbors to take
shelter from the dangerous bolts. In the deafening cracks of thunder, the Inuit inhabitants of Iqaluit learned a
lesson about the effects of global climate change.
As the planet has warmed, the extreme weather of Canada’s polar region has grown unpredictable, leaving
the Inuit, an ethnic group scattered across Greenland, Alaska, and northern Canada, bracing for change. Recent
summers have brought more than thunderstorms: The shrinking ice cap threatens the group’s hunting practices
and traditional transportation routes. At the same time, mining, shipping, and oil companies, with the help of the
Canadian government, have seized on the consequences of global warming to promote industrial growth. Facing
these extraordinary changes, the Inuit, who started to give up nomadic life only 50 years ago, are coping with
forced changes to their lifestyle while trying to maintain control over their future.
A Beleaguered People
Inuit life was difficult long before the problems associated with climate change. The temperature in Iqaluit
ranges between 45 degrees Fahrenheit in July, when the sun never sets, and 14 degrees below zero in January,
when the night does not end. The land is barren and treeless, and for 10 months of the year the city is accessible
only by air.
The Inuit are few but cover vast territory: Nunavut, the province a land claim negotiation established for the
Inuit a decade ago, has a population of only 29,000 in an area greater in size than Alaska. Iqaluit, Nunavut’s
capital, has just over 6,000 inhabitants. The population is very young, and most are Inuit. According to Canada’s
2006 census, the median age in the province is 20 years old, and 84 percent identify as Inuit. Nanavut’s population
has undergone a boom since the 1950s, when the government began encouraging traditionally nomadic groups to
resettle in permanent communities.
The upsurge in the Inuit population changed many aspects of life. Inuit nations were no longer selfsustaining entities and came to rely almost entirely on the federal government for their livelihoods. The
government supplied housing, health care, and a more accessible food supply, which helped encourage the
population increase. This, in turn, set a precedent for cramped living conditions: The 2006 census found that 18
percent of Inuit live in households lodging more than one family.
Adequate employment remains hard to come by. While the Inuit in remote villages still rely almost entirely
on hunting, those in communities like Iqaluit benefit from government-provided jobs. Yet they remain uninspired by
the bureaucratic posts that make up the majority of those available. The average income in these communities
stands well below that of the rest of the country.
Young Inuits, especially, are uninterested in what is perceived to be the empty bureaucratic work of the
government. Jesse Mike, the interim president of the Inuit Youth Council, an organization aimed at preserving Inuit
language and culture and addressing social issues affecting the region’s youth, said that many of her friends are
unhappy with their job options: “A lot of them would like to be traveling. None of them really say [so]; they just often
talk about how much they hate their jobs.”
Nunavut’s relative poverty and general lack of opportunity, as well as high rates of substance addiction,
contribute to the province’s high suicide rate: Health Canada, the federal government agency for public health,
estimates the Inuit suicide rate is 11 times the national average. Opportunities for the region must be taken
seriously. But at what cost, the Inuit must decide, should they proceed?
The Threat of Climate Change
Shifting weather patterns have produced deep fears as well as serious immediate consequences for the
Inuit. Peter Kulchyski, professor of Aboriginal Studies at the University of Manitoba, worries that the eventual
environmental, economic, and cultural costs of climate change in Canada’s arctic will outweigh any gains the
region can make through development. Kulchyksi has visited the nearby Pangnirtung region of Baffin Island since
the mid1980s. He attested to the continual devastation brought on by global warming, citing the thinning ice
around the island as a chief example. Thinner ice raises transportation costs, as local Inuit can no longer shuttle
goods across the ice on snowmobiles. The melting ice causes the soil to deteriorate as well. “Around Glacier Lake,
you can literally see the land being destroyed with boulders crumbling from increased erosion,” Kulchyski said.
“They had to close the surrounding national park to hikers because it was too dangerous.”
Climate change threatens the traditional Inuit way of life. Ancient cultural traditions based on hunting game
were first hampered by the onset of permanent settlements. Now that the feeding and migration patterns of local
game have changed, hunters are suffering. Kulchyski recalled an incident during which Inuit elders were forced to
shoot a starving polar bear that had wandered into their village to look for food because the polar bear’s natural
feeding grounds — on the surface of the ice cap — were rapidly receding. Mike told of several recent occasions
when professional Inuit hunters fell through the Arctic Sea’s ice. Although none of the hunters died, Mike said that
she could not remember any hunters falling through the ice before a few years ago.
Increased access to uranium deposits also threatens hunting. The Inuit living in Baker Lake, one of the few
communities in inland Nunavut, recently allowed Aurora Energy Resources Inc., a fast-growing local mining
company, to acquire the rights to explore the surrounding land for uranium. With the mines would come jobs and
revenue for the province. But the mines could poison wildlife and divert caribou herd migration patterns. Such a
development would devastate hunting and likely leave the land barren for years.
The disruption of hunting traditions could upset the social fabric of Inuit communities. If hunting jobs
become unprofitable or too dangerous, professional hunters will be permanently out of work.
“Right now, Inuit hunters are quite well off,” Kulchyski said. “They are their own bosses, they eat organic
food — but if these mines or global warming damage their food supply, then they are in danger of becoming
actually poor.” In addition to financial concerns, the central role of hunting might disappear in a few short years if
climate trends continue to limit the practice in its tradition.
Most importantly, the damage done to hunting traditions represents a betrayal of Inuit principles. “A lot of it
goes back to how we were raised here to respect the land and to live with the land,” Mike said. “That isn’t the way
people are making their decisions anymore, and I think there are many negative impacts with mining that we have
learned from other areas.”
The Promise of Development
Facing generally harsh circumstances, one might expect the Inuit to welcome the advantages of
development and a milder climate. Many do. “Economic interest in the north appears to be increasing regardless
of … [the] direction [of] the climate,” said Jeff Rusk, the director of technical services at the Nunavut Impact
Review Board, an environmental assessment agency meant to evaluate the promise of development projects in
Nunavut.
Inuit students are taking a more active role in finding jobs in Canada’s industrial sector. Increased
enrollment in the area’s technical colleges indicates that more students are choosing to learn industrial skills. Irene
Cant, a student advisor at the Cambridge Bay Campus of the Nunavut Arctic College, said that the college
regularly alters its curriculum to better suit the needs of industrial firms. This year, for example, it has offered
classes on mining. Cant said that, for the most part, students at Nunavut Arctic have embraced mining-related
development. “There are a lot of mines opening up in the region and students are excited for that,” Cant said. “It’s
an opportunity for students to make money.”
Additionally, years of government planning have operated on the premise that climate change will make the
Northwest Passage a viable shipping lane within the foreseeable future. Transporting goods across the Arctic
instead of through the Panama Canal would save vessels 7,000 kilometers and about two weeks of travel time.
The unpredictable nature of the fluctuating climate has caused scientists to shorten their environmental estimates:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the World Meteorological Organization and the
United Nations Environmental Program, recently altered its original prediction that the Arctic sea would be free of
ice during the summer of 2050. The Panel found that the ice is melting so rapidly that the Arctic sea will be
completely unfrozen during the summer months of 2020.
Iqaluit is set to welcome a new deep-sea port, a construction project planned as part of Canada’s
investment in the Northwest Passage. The national government is eager to cash in on this quickly materializing
route and has centered its campaign to claim the Northwest Passage as an inland waterway on building significant
new infrastructure. The deep-sea port in Iqaluit would allow delivery of shipments regardless of the tides. Mike,
though skeptical of recent mining developments, is upbeat about the port: “The deep-sea port would be a very
good thing,” she said, “especially considering that we get most of our goods via ship.”
The Final Say
Nunavut was created in 1998 as part of the largest land claims agreement between a government and an
Aboriginal people. As a result, the Inuit have final authority, through Inuit-run organizations like the Nunavut Impact
Review Board, over all the economic activity in the province. As Inuit communities experience the trauma of
climate change, they will have the ability to authorize or prohibit projects that pose a further threat to the land.
Baker Lake first garnered attention from the uranium industry in the 1990s, but the Inuit went to court to
ban a mine at the time. Now, Aurora has opened a public relations office in Baker Lake to help pass the project
and, with its partner, Pacific Ridge, has already spent over $7.5 million to explore the region.
Some caution that the information disseminated by the mining company’s office may be incomplete. Mike
maintained that the Inuit elders she spoke to in the village had no idea that uranium mining could poison the
caribou herds on which Iqaluit depends — many in the village are still professional hunters.
The inhabitants of Baker Lake may be conflicted over the prospect of a uranium mine, but they nonetheless
retain the power to determine the outcome of the project. In February, the project proposal was put up for review;
now the Nunavut Impact Review Board is going through the comments of dozens of public agencies and advocacy
groups, as well as a series of town hall meetings with the people in the area, before it makes a recommendation.
With each passing year, as development creeps further north, the Inuit will have to work hard to make sure
that their traditions and strong communities survive. Even though they can do relatively little to stop the course of
global warming or to slow the forceful hand of the global marketplace, Kulchyski does not see their culture’s fate
as sealed. “Inuit culture prides itself in flexibility and its ability to adapt,” he said. “They showed these skills battling
life on the tundra for centuries, including during the mini ice age in the 1600s, and are using those qualities again
now.” Given that the Inuit will have the last word on all development projects, they have the opportunity to ensure
their future before the ice literally melts underneath them.
COMMUNITIES AT RISK?
Tool  2, Activity 8
Climate Change ‘cultural genocide’ for Aborigines
May 4 2009
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Global-Warming/Climate-change-cultural-genocide-forAborigines/articleshow/4482421.cms
SYDNEY: Climate change would force Australia's Aborigines off their traditional lands, resulting in "cultural
genocide" and environmental degradation, a human rights watchdog warned.
Australia's original inhabitants, whose cultures stretch back many thousands of years, Aborigines would be deeply
affected by the impact of global warming, the government-funded Human Rights Commission said.
Rising sea levels and soaring temperatures would make their homelands uninhabitable, severing spiritual links and
laying waste to the environment, according to the commission's annual Native Title Report.
"Problems that indigenous Australians will encounter include people being forced to leave their lands, particularly
in coastal areas," the report said.
"Dispossession and a loss of access to traditional lands, waters, and natural resources may be described as
cultural genocide; a loss of ancestral, spiritual, totemic and language connections to lands and associated areas."
Being robbed of their traditional caretaking role for land and water resources would also result in "environmental
degradation and adverse impacts on biodiversity and overall health and well-being," the commission said.
Blood-borne tropical illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever would increase, while food security for
subsistence farmers and hunters and gatherers among indigenous populations would be threatened.
At the time of white settlement in 1788 Aborigines were believed to number more than one million, but now
account for just 2.5 percent of the population, with an estimated 517,000 people.
A quarter of these lived in remote outback and coastal areas, with up to 80 percent of adults in these communities
relying on the natural environment for their livelihoods, the report said.
They owned, controlled, used, managed or had access to about 20 percent of the Australian continent, and fishing
and hunting for food were common activities. Natural resources were also used for commercial activity such as
arts and crafts, and tourism.
Aborigines have much higher rates of infant mortality, health problems and suicide than other Australians, with
many living in squalid camps where unemployment, alcoholism and lawlessness are rife.