Arctic Peoples

by Clive Tesar

Canadian Inuit are opposing vigorous lobbying efforts to get the polar bear listed as “threatened” under the American Endangered Species Act. The US government has been considering the action since 2006. Now three conservation groups, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace are threatening to sue the US government to get it to proceed with the listing. Canadian Inuit say the environmentalists are taking aim at the wrong target.

Two organizations that represent Inuit in Canada are disagreeing with the tactic of using the polar bear to try to force the American government to take action on climate change. Duane Smith, the president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (Canada) says,

“I don’t see how listing it as threatened will complement the sustainability of the population. It is climate change that is the problem, not the sustainable hunting of polar bears.”

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by Clive Tesar

A young polar bear is now back on the Canadian Arctic coast after wandering 300 kilometres inland. The bears typically do not stray far from the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Duane Smith, President of Inuit Circumpolar Council (Canada), suspects the bear wandered inland to search for food because the ice in the Arctic has receded so far offshore. The bears typically eat a diet high in marine life, especially seals. After being spotted near a community, the bear was lured into a cage by a muktuk (whale blubber) bait, and transported back to the coast.

by Clive Tesar

The disappearing caribou in the Northwest Territories (NWT) in Canada have people anxious – very anxious. Some herds have declined by thousands, some by hundreds of thousands over the past twenty years. Everywhere in the central Arctic, the trend seems to be the same – fewer caribou. This is not just a matter of concern for Indigenous Peoples in the region, It is a matter of real hardship, economic, cultural, social and spiritual. The lives of the Indigenous Peoples of the region have been bound up with caribou for thousands of years. Some believe that in every human heart is a little of the caribou heart, and in every caribou, a little of the human heart.

This is not the first time the caribou numbers have dropped. Indigenous knowledge and scientific evidence both suggest that caribou herds here hit a low about every thirty years. This is thought to be linked to the effect of climate and caribou populations on lichens, the plants that are the main winter food of the caribou. But things have changed in the Northwest Territories over the past thirty years. There are more people, and more roads. There is new technology being used to help hunters, including tracking of radio-collared caribou that has been posted on the Internet. There are new mines on the barrens, with more planned. Perhaps most importantly, the climate is changing, that changes snow conditions, forest fires, and plant growth.

In January 2007, the Government of the Northwest Territories brought together about 170 delegates in Inuvik, near the Arctic coast of the Northwest Territories, for a ‘Caribou Summit’, the first gathering of its kind.

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