Indigenous Environmental Network posted a news release today about its protest of tar sands and fossil fuel pollution at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico:

Over twenty people with color-coded T-shirts that spelled out the words “Shut Down the Tar Sands” in both English and Spanish gathered in front of the Maya building to directly deliver their message to UNFCCC delegates. Participants included Indigenous community representatives from fossil fuel impacted community across Canada and the U.S., many carrying personal banners linking tar sands with the destruction of their territories.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo of the Lubicon Cree comes from a community impacted by tar sands. “We have seen the destruction of our lands happen right before our eyes. Our water is being contaminated and we are seeing droughts throughout the region. My family used to be able to drink from our watershed, and now within my lifetime we can no longer do so.

Young and old people alike have developed respiratory illnesses as neighboring plants emit noxious gases into the air. First Nations and farming communities have reported health effects to the wildlife and livestock. The area is drastically changing – I fear for the future of my homeland.”

The tar sands are the fastest growing source of GHG emissions in Canada. Unless Canada changes track emissions from the tar sands industry are set to triple to over 120 millions tones. Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Environmental Network said, “Our communities demand real solutions to address the climate crisis and that means shutting down the tar sands and a moratorium on new fossil fuel development.”

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s criticism of Canada for not including indigenous people in an Arctic conference earlier this week has kicked up a firestorm. (See previous post, here.)

But the people at the center of the controversy are glad Clinton spoke up, according to Agence France-Presse.

“I’m grateful for her comments and I hope it encourages Canada to be more inclusive, or at the very least to consider inviting northern inhabitants at meetings such as this,” Duane Smith, head of the Canadian branch of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), tells the news agency, here.

Smith says his group, which lobbies on behalf of northern peoples, had asked to be included in the Arctic Coastal conference, but was turned down.

Clinton criticized that exclusion, as well as that of Iceland, Sweden and Finland, whose interests in the region also are legitimate, she said.

Canada is newly protective of the Arctic, because climate change is opening up new shipping lanes that could provide better access to huge mineral and fuel reserves. Other northern countries also lay claim to those.

Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon has said this week’s meeting “was not made to replace or undermine the Arctic Council,” which comprises northern nations and indigenous groups, meets biannually, according to AFP.

Gwen Florio

Notice anything about the photo to the right? It’s of foreign ministers invited to a Canadian forum on the Arctic, designed to further cooperation in the region.

Yep, there’s not an indigenous person in the lot.

And U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is mad about that. Not a single representative from the region’s indigenous groups was invited to yesterday’s Arctic Coastal forum, she says, according to this story by Rob Gillies of the Associated Press. Clinton didn’t hold back.

In remarks termed by the Canadian press as a “bombshell,” Clinton said that “Significant international discussions on Arctic issues should include those who have legitimate interests in the region. And I hope the Arctic will always showcase our ability to work together, not create new divisions.”

As Gillies writes:

In what appeared to be a further expression of her displeasure, Clinton did not attend what was planned as a group news conference following the meeting. Instead, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon ended up doing the news conference by himself.

Although the goal of the gathering was to improve Arctic cooperation, just the U.S., Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway were invited.

Sweden, Finland, Iceland and indigenous groups are a part of the broader Arctic Council group that meets regularly, but were not invited to the Canadian forum.

A number of countries are vying for control of the Arctic and its rich mineral and petroleum resources – newly accessible as melting ice, due to climate change, creates new shipping routes. Canada says that if a reliable Northwest Passage opens, it belongs to Canada. But the Unites States and others say those would be international waters.

Gwen Florio

Eroding Alaskan village to pursue climate change case
The fast-eroding village of Kivalina, Alaska, is trying to revive its lawsuit claiming greenhouses gases from oil, power and coal companies are causing the climate change that endangers the community. The suit was dismissed in federal court last year but Kivalina is appealing, with the opening brief due next month, according to the Associated Press, here.

First Nations chiefs likely to light Olympic torch?
So says Charlie Smith, of the Straight.com Olympics blog from Vancouver, here. Betting is hot and heavy – and the lobbying for favorites even more so (think Wayne Gretzky) – over who will light the torch, but Smith’s virtual money is on all four chiefs of the Four Host First Nations. We’ll know this week!

New Louise Erdrich novel both familiar and very different
Louise Erdrich’s new book “Shadow Tag” is unlike any of her others, the New York Times Book Review declares, here. Native themes permeate, but the novel focuses on a couple who works closely together, and about the dissolution of their marriage, and has parallels to Erdrich’s marriage to Michael Dorris.

S.D. tribes part of Justice Department session on Indian Country crime
Representatives of tribes living in South Dakota have been invited to the first of several listening sessions the U.S. Justice Department intends to hold on crime in Indian Country, Wayne Ortman of the Associated Press writes here. It’s part of an Obama administration push to deal with the problem, particularly as it pertains to violence against women and children.

Gwen Florio

This particular story is near and dear to our hearts at Buffalo Post because we’ve traveled twice to Canada’s northernmost territory, Nunavut – once before it became an Inuit territory, and once afterward, once in summer and once in winter, each time featuring its own particular beauty. This story from the Associated Press about the pending G-7 meeting in the high Arctic only makes us want to go back yet again.

As Rob Gillies of the Associated Press writes, Nunavut’s capital of Iqaluit, on Baffin Island will be quite a change for the leaders of the world’s most powerful economies. The town of 7,000 people still has no stoplights, and winter will still be in full force when the G-7 leaders arrive Friday and Saturday.

However, Canada’s choice of Iqaluit as the meeting place makes two important points.

The first has to do with the sovereignty; the second with the already-apparent affects in the Arctic of climate change:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that apart from wanting to showcase the charms of Nunavut (Inuit for “Our Land”), Canada is sending a diplomatic message about a territory that may contain one-fifth of the world’s petroleum reserves.

“It’s one of our government’s priorities, the assertion of our sovereignty in the Arctic,” Flaherty said….

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, the first Inuit to sit in a Canadian federal cabinet, also has her eye on geography. “With the interest from my prime minister to develop the north and the interest around sovereignty, it’s an ideal location to have a G-7, to show the international community that Canada’s Arctic is a part of Canada,” Aglukkaq told the AP.

Meanwhile, the average February temperature in Iqaluit is 25-below. As Gillies writes: “That should make for quite a photo op.”

We’ll be updating on the meeting itself.

Gwen Florio

Yes, climate change is affecting polar bears, but the giant carnivores seem to be adapting just fine, according to reports to a hotline run by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.

“The polar bear population has exploded to the point that Inuit are seeing bears that they never used to see,” Paul Irngaut, a wildlife advisor with NTI, tells the Nunatsiaq News, here.

“The future of the polar bear is bright,” he said. But that’s a minority opinion these days, with conservation groups and many scientists claiming that the loss of sea ice due to climate change means the polar bear is facing habitat loss, which will eventually put pressure on population numbers, which total around 25,000 around the world. More than 15,000 of those bears are found in Canada.

NTI set up the toll-free number last month to collect local knowledge on polar bears ahead of the vote on a controversial proposal by the United States that would effectively ban the commercial trade of polar bear parts.

That proposal is to before a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), scheduled for Doha, Qatar this March. NTI plans to present information from the hotline at the conference.

If approved, the plan would effectively end sport-hunting of polar bears. Irngaut estimates polar bear hunting is worth between $2 million and $3 million per year to Nunavut’s economy.

“For cash-strapped communities with low job rates, it’s a huge impact,” he says.

Gwen Florio

Different Inuit groups at the climate change conference in Copenhagen worked hard yesterday to reconcile their positions on the issue.

It was Inuit and Arctic Indigenous Peoples Day at the conference, so the show of unity was important, Jane George reports here in the Nunatsiaq News.

Inuit from Canada, Alaska and Greenland vowed to work on reconciling economic development and the threat posed by global warming, George writes

“We all agree that we deserve a good life. And we all agree that the Arctic and other vulnerable parts of the world are areas of special concern and should be treated as such by those wielding the most power,” says Aqqaluk Lynge, the chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Greenland.

Jimmy Stotts, the chair of ICC, Alaska, finds its “ironic” that Inuit are now being told to scale back their industrial development when they did not contribute to global warming. And, George writes, he cautioned against alliances with environmental groups because that could undermine traditional whale and seal hunts.

Lynge says there’s “a paradox of development” among Inuit.

“Those that are the most vulnerable, in particular indigenous peoples, are the ones that need sound sustainable development the most,” he says. “And we are told by the colonizers and the developed part of the word we can’t.”

Gwen Florio

At the invitation of the White House, Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal Chairman James Steele Jr. will be part of a panel discussion tomorrow in Copenhagen as part of the International Climate Change conference.

Steele will join Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, U.S. Rep. Kate Knuth of Minnesota and Alice Madden, an adviser in the Colorado governor’s office for the talk, the Missoulian’s Vince Devlin reports here.

The National Wildlife Federation and the National Tribal Environmental Council joined the White House in issuing the invitation to the discussion titled “Leadership and Innovation by States and Tribes in the United States.”

“Our home reservation features pristine wilderness, waters and animal life,” Steele says. “This didn’t happen by chance or luck. We’ve worked very hard to maintain our natural areas and we’re also reclaiming lands. Each day seems to bring a new threat to our lands. I welcome this chance to tell our story.”

Gwen Florio