http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1104241,00.html
Global
warming is killing us too, say Inuit
Paul Brown in Milan
Thursday December 11, 2003
The Guardian
The Inuit people of
Canada and Alaska are launching a human
rights case against the Bush administration claiming they
face extinction because of global warming.
By repudiating the
Kyoto protocol and refusing to cut
US carbon dioxide emissions, which make up 25% of the
world's total, Washington is violating their human rights,
the Inuit claim.
For their campaign
they are inviting the Washington-based
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to visit the
Arctic circle to see the devastation being caused by
global warming.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier,
the chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar
Conference, which represents all 155,000 of her people inside
the Arctic circle, said: "We want to show that we are not
powerless victims. These are drastic times for our people
and require drastic measures."
The human rights case
was announced at the climate talks
in Milan, Italy, where 140 countries are trying to put
the finishing touches to the Kyoto protocol, the first
international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases.
The backing of Russia, which is hesitating about ratifying
the agreement, is required to bring the protocol into
force. The US is trying to persuade the Russian president,
Vladimir Putin, not to sign the protocol.
The Inuit have no voice
at the conference, since they
are not a nation state, but Mrs Watt-Cloutier said:
"We are already bearing the brunt of climate change
- without our snow and ice our way of life goes.
We have lived in harmony with our surroundings for
millennia, but that is being taken away from us.
"People worry
about the polar bear becoming extinct
by 2070 because there will be no ice from which they
can hunt seals, but the Inuit face extinction for the
same reason and at the same time.
"This a David
and Goliath story. Most people have lost
contact with the natural world. They even think global
warming has benefits, like wearing a T-shirt in November,
but we know the planet is melting and with it our vibrant
culture, our way of life. We are an endangered species, too."
Mrs Watt-Cloutier comes
from Pangirtung, north of Iqaluit,
in Canada. The entire area should already be ice-bound,
and winter hunting would normally have begun, but in
Frobisher Bay, the home of both polar bears and Inuit,
the water is still clear. "We now have weeks of
uncertainty about when the ice will come," she said.
"In the spring the ice melts not at the end of June
but weeks earlier. Sometimes the ice is so thin hunters
fall through.
"The ocean is
too warm. Our elders, who instruct the young
on the ways of the winter and what to expect, are at a loss.
Last Christmas after the ice had formed the temperature rose
to 4C [39F] and it rained. We'd never known it before."
Among the problems
the Inuit face is permafrost melting,
which has destroyed the foundations of houses, eroded the
seashore and forced people to move inland. Airport runways,
roads and harbours are also collapsing.
The Washington-based
commission, which is the Americas'
equivalent of the European court of human rights, will
be asked to rule against the US government but has no
power to enforce any action. However, the Inuit believe
the publicity the case will provide, particularly with
hearings in Washington, will embarrass George Bush's
government and educate US public opinion about the
consequences of profligate ways of living.
"Europeans understand
this issue but in America the
public know little or nothing and politicians are in
denial," Mrs Watt-Cloutier said. "We are hunters and
we are trained to go for the heart. The heart of the
problem is in Washington."
She hoped that by winning
the case Inuit would win
a voice at climate talks. "The Inuit people see me
as one of the leaders, with the same status as the
ministers here. As a nation we are badly affected
by climate change, but in these negotiations we have
no voice.
"We intend to
get one so our representative can sit
round the table with other ministers and demand action
to save our people."
Arctic dwellers
· Inuit means
"the people" and is the generic name given
to indigenous people of the Arctic. Though the word "eskimo",
meaning "eaters of raw meat", is still used to described
Inuit,
it is generally considered derogatory.
· Inuit populations
include Canadian Inuit, Alaska's Inupiat
and Yupik people, and the Russian Yupik.
· Inuit are
descendants of the Thule people who arrived
in Alaska about AD500 and reached Canada in 1000. Alaskan
Inuit now live mainly in the North Slope boroughs and the
Bering Straits region.
· Inuit rely
heavily on subsistence fishing and hunting whales,
walruses and seals.
· The arrival
of Europeans damaged the traditional Inuit
way of life and since the 1970s their leaders have been
campaigning for greater rights and asserting their territorial
claims.
· In more recent
times Inuit have banded together to fight against
environmental damage to their homelands.
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