Luleå, Sweden – 9 November 2011 – The Senior Arctic Officials (SAOs) ended their 2-day meeting today endorsing several initiatives important to Inuit.
The 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.
Duane Smith said ICC’s multi-year proposal to work with linguists and other indigenous peoplesin assessing, monitory, and promoting the indigenous languages of the Arctic is the “kind ofhuman-focused initiatives we need more of at the Arctic Council”. 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’ organizations that has “permanent participant” status at the Arctic Council, and participates directly and actively at meetings such as this.
Mr. Smith added, “we will collaborate with academics, as their linguistic expertise is important, but Inuit under ICC will lead this project” with full support of the 8 Arctic states and with assistancefrom the other permanent participants. “We are happy that Canada has been very supportive of this languages work and that the USA’s National Science Foundation has indicated theirwillingness to entertain the possibility of significant funding for the project”.
The ICC Canada president was also pleased with the support given to ICC’s proposal looking at the impact of Arctic shipping on Inuit. In particular, Mr. Smith said “we 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’s findings and recommendations”. This study of shipping in the Arctic is “extremely valuable for Inuit, as we area maritime people and will be the first to bear the brunt of shipping mistakes and possibledisasters”. On the other hand, Arctic shipping, added Mr. Smith, “can and should serve Inuit as well”. As part of this Arctic Council project, ICC will interview hunters to determine how they usethe sea ice and how tomorrow’s shipping projections may affect them.
The Arctic Council’s SAOs in Luleå 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.
Contact:
Carole Simon, ICC Canada
Tel: + 1 613 563 2642
Email: csimon@inuitcircumpolar.com