Arctic Peoples

The Saami Parliament in Norway has released the first public version of a Saami “spell checker” and other proofing tools. This is a milestone in Saami computing history, and is part of various different efforts to ensure that indigenous languages can be used with modern computer technology. Microsoft has been developing some of its programs in indigenous languages, including Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit, and a Greenlandic spell checker has already been developed.

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by Clive Tesar

The United States Government is beginning to show signs that it understands the seriousness of climate change. A new Bill in the United States Senate backs an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050. The Bill, sponsored by Senator Boxer, has attracted the support of democratic presidential hopefuls Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama.

A senior Senate staff official told a visiting delegation of Arctic Leaders,

We hope to be in a position to do something very aggressive on global warming when we have a new President. However, we still have a lot of difficult people, including two senators from Alaska who won’t agree.

The Arctic Leaders have been visiting Senators’ offices in Washington DC, for the past three days to persuade the Senators to back urgent action on climate change. The Leaders have stressed that they are not backing any particular Bill, or any particular US political party, but simply want to see the United States take any action that will start to stabilize temperatures in the Arctic.
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by Clive Tesar

Arctic leaders touring the United States with their eyewitness messages of climate change shared their stories with local Indigenous Peoples yesterday. The exchange came during a tour stop in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The audience at a public meeting in a Presbyterian church included local Anishnabe people, and also some descendants of Saami people who had come to hear Saami Council Vice President Olav Mathis Eira.

Clyde Belcourt, a local Anishnabe elder, spoke of the local impacts of climate change that Indigenous Peoples in Minnesota are seeing. He mentioned a drop in water levels that is affecting the spawning beds of local fish such as walleye. Even more importantly, the low water levels are threatening the habitat of the wild rice, a traditional crop that is not only economically important to local people, but also has great cultural significance. Read the rest of this entry »