Arctic Peoples

The AMAP meetings that took place in San Francisco from 8–12 February 2010 comprised an AMAP strategy workshop and an AMAP Working Group meeting. One of presently six Arctic Council Working Groups, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) was originally established in 1991 to implement parts of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS).

The primary function of AMAP is to advise the governments of the eight Arctic countries (Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States) on matters relating to threats to the Arctic region from pollution, and associated issues.

After 20 years of work, resulting in a series of high quality scientifically based assessments of the pollution status of the Arctic, AMAP now enters a phase of strategic renovation. AMAP has been requested by the Arctic Council to address, in its assessment activities, impacts of environmental and climate changes on the socio-economic conditions and cultures of northern and indigenous communities. Furthermore, AMAP is planning to develop a strong scientific and policy outreach to provide Arctic information at both the national and international levels to better inform environmental, climate, and human health policy and decision-making. Read the rest of this entry »

Canada has announced that it will host a high-level meeting to discuss the future of economic development and environmental protection in nations bordering the Arctic Ocean in Chelsea, Quebec on March 29, 2010.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Laurence Cannon described the upcoming gathering as a means to “provide an opportunity for Arctic Ocean coastal states to prepare for and encourage development that has positive benefits, including economical and environmental. It will reinforce ongoing collaboration in the region, including in the Arctic Council .

Minister Cannon has invited his counterparts from the five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean to the summit, but has received harsh criticism for excluding representatives from Arctic Indigenous organizations, particularly the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) and the Arctic Athabaskan Council (AAC).

AAC International Chair Bill Erasmus responded to Minister Cannon’s exclusion saying: “We don’t see how the minister can discuss ‘responsible development’ in the Arctic with his counterparts from the United States, Russia, Denmark/Greenland and Norway without representatives of northern Canada.”

Pointing out that AAC and five other Arctic Indigenous Peoples organizations are permanent participants to the eight nation Arctic Council Mr. Erasmus said “It makes no sense for us to be included in the Arctic Council but excluded in meetings of the five Arctic Ocean states”.

Read the rest of this entry »

At the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Tromsø in April 2009, the chairmanship of the council was passed on from Norway to Denmark. Denmark, at the end of its term in 2011, will in its turn pass the chairmanship on to Sweden that will thus take the suite of Scandinavian Arctic Council Chairs to its completion in 2013.
In their common programme, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in 2007 stressed the need for applying an integrated, sustainable, and ecosystem-based approach to the use of Arctic resources, all of which concerns, according to the programme, might be comprised within a holistic perspective.  And the needs of Arctic communities and indigenous peoples is clearly seen as falling within a such perspective.
The Danish chairmanship, in its own program, likewise evokes a holistic perspective to comprise a complex of concerns about environmental protection, conservation of Arctic flora and fauna, and the preservation of the livelihoods of indigenous peoples and Arctic communities that, the programme states, remains at the core of the work of the Arctic Council .
Thus, on the one hand, the Chair recognises the centrality of indigenous peoples’ needs and rights, via the category of Permanents Participants, to the idea of the Arctic Council ; yet, on the other hand, like in the Danish programme, the council is cautious to speak not only of indigenous peoples, but also of local people, and to speak not only of people(s), but also of communities and residents. Read the rest of this entry »

When Inuit Circumpolar Council , in 2009, released its  “Inuit Circumpolar Declaration on Arctic Sovereignty”, it was not making a statement of secession of an Inuit Nation or something like that. On the contrary, it was critically examining the concept of national sovereignty from the perspective of indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, pointing out how, within evolving governance models and federations, sovereignties overlap and get divided “in creative ways to recognize the rights of peoples.”

When using the word sovereignty in their declaration, the ICC was effectively referring to another declaration, the ”Ilulissat Declaration” adopted at the Arctic Ocean Conference, in May 2008 by the five coastal States bordering on the Arctic Ocean, USA, Canada, Russia, Norway, and Denmark/Greenland. Read the rest of this entry »

The IPY Oslo Science Conference will be the largest polar science event to date! It will demonstrate, strengthen, and extend the International Polar Year’s accomplishments in science and outreach. The conference is an essential opportunity to display and explore the full breadth and implications of IPY activities. The international and interdisciplinary science conference will in particular highlight the global impact of the changes that have been observed in the Polar Regions.

The IPY-OSC steering committee received more than 2200 abstracts from 58 countries on deadline, however, as a courtesy to some partners, in particular Antarctic scientists returning from the field, the committee has decided to slightly extend the deadline until January 25, 2010.

Submit your abstract now!

PLEASE NOTE: PolarTEACHERS can still apply, and PolarCINEMA receives entries until 15th of February.

Read the rest of this entry »

Discovering the Arctic is the name of a web learning facility developed and recently launched by the Royal Geographical Society. It is aimed at the secondary school level (14-16 year olds) in the United Kingdom. According to the Royal Geographical Society, it is intended to be a resource to be dipped into depending on specific curriculum needs and priorities.

The Discovering the Arctic website seems biased toward what, according to a widespread view, constitutes the quintessential Arctic, viz. the high North of Greenland and Canada, and thus gives preference to the Inuit whereas peoples and places of Arctic Russian Federation get comparatively less coverage.

While tending to over-expose the Inuit, at the same time the information rendered about Inuit is rather superficial and sometimes incorrect. For instance, the website makes no attempt to correct the common misunderstanding that Inuit is a noun in the singular that becomes Inuits in the plural, whereas Inuit is in fact plural of the singular Inuk. Read the rest of this entry »

The Riddu Riddu Festival presents an Indigenous performance in the lavvu (traditional Saami tent) that has been set up on the North Atlantic Quay starring Inger Biret Gaup and Kristian Mølgaard.

Experience a magnificent performance combining Joik, the traditional chanting song of the Sami people, and mask dancing from Greenland. The performance exposes two genuine indigenous expressions and is a unique meeting between two indigenous people of the North.

Inger Biret Gaup and Kristian Mølgaard will perform on:

MONDAY 14th of december at 4 pm
TUESDAY 15th of december at 4 pm
WEDNESDAY 16th of december at 12:15 pm

IPS’ list of COP15 side events and parallel events organised by, involving or of relevance to Arctic and Indigenous Peoples:

5-6 December, IIPFCC (Indigenous Caucus) preparatory meeting; EEA, Kongens Nytorv 6.

7 December, 16:00, WWF Arctic Tent, Youth Day, Presentation by Arctic members of Canadian Youth Delegation, Nytorv.

8 December, 16:30, WWF Arctic Tent, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Nytorv.

10 December, 10:00 - 12:00, Foreningen NORDENs Ungdom, Arktiske folk om klimaet (The climate according to Arctic Peoples), People’s Climate Forum, DGI-byen (by the Main Central Station), Venue 3.

10 December, 18:00: “Making the Declaration Work”, IWGIA book launch, Danish Polar Centre, Strandgade 102.

12 December,12:00 – 13:00, Opening of the Riddu Riddu Lavvu, Presentation of the Ealát project featuring Dr. Robert Corell and Saami youth, the World Reindeer Herders Association and International Center for Reindeer Husbandry, North Atlantic Qua

12 December, 12:00, Opening of the Greenland Representation In the Eye of Climate Change exhibition, North Atlantic House, Strandgade 91. Read the rest of this entry »

The 15th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened on Monday, 7 December 2009. Concurrently with COP15, the 5th session of the Kyoto Protocol parties (CMP5) as well as sessions of Subsidiary Bodies and Ad Hoc Working Groups also take place in the Bella Centre.

With the announcement of U.S. President Obama that he will attend toward the end of the conference, the whole discourse on the climate negotiations and the possibility of reaching a renewed international agreement shifted from a pessimistic to an optimistic note. Suddenly, the prospect of merely reaching a political declaration instead of sealing a binding deal was described by commentators as not such a bad result after all.

A few days later, the leaking of the so-called Danish Text made the new-found spirit of optimism evaporate and brought the climate summit into disarray. The leaked text, to paraphrase outraged developing countries, is a blatant expression of rich countries covert machinations – within the so-called ”circle of commitment” - to shift the balance of obligations in their own favour and abandon the Kyoto Protocol’s principle of historical debt. Perhaps these lightning fast developments testify to the catastrophic nature, not so much of climate change itself, but rather of the ways in which it is being dealt with. Read the rest of this entry »

Warming up to the Copenhagen COP15 in December, the North Atlantic House has shrouded itself in an icy garment. A translucent screen imprinted with photographic reproductions of ice covers the waterfront end of the building, giving the appearance from a distance that it has rammed into and is being engulfed by a towering iceberg.

The 21 meters high and approximately 4000 square meter installation entitled ”The Tip of the Iceberg” is the work of artist Inuk Silis Høegh. It was inaugurated on Friday 20 November in an event that took place outside the North Atlantic House and included speeches by the Icelandic ambassador to Denmark Svavar Gestsson and head of the Faroese Representation Herálvur Joensen, followed by handing of flowers to the artist and serving of hot drinks steaming between hands in the cooling late afternoon November air. Read the rest of this entry »