Greenland visit must not only have a show-effect – the native people are looking for support

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) appealed on Wednesday to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to offer on her visit to Greenland assistance from the G8 states to the Inuit native people in coping with the consequences of the climate catastrophe. „Her visit must not have merely a show-effect, but must provide concrete assistance to the Inuit as they are the first victims of the climate catastrophe”, said the letter of the GfbV to the German Chancellor. Thus better medical care is required for the 60,000 Inuit living in Greenland since through the melting of the ice many toxic substances are being released which formerly were frozen in.

Frau Merkel and the Minister for the Environment, Sigmar Gabriel, will be gathering information on Thursday on the consequences of the climate change. Last week already Italy’s Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, the President of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and the US politicians, Nancy Pelosi, and John McCain, gained their own impressions of the consequences of the melting of the ice.

The GfbV draws attention to the fact that it had in the autumn of 2006 already asked the German Chancellor to take measures during the German presidency of the G8 to encourage the industrial countries to pay attention to the right of indigenous peoples in the Arctic and Subarctic to food, clean water, adequate housing and respect for their traditional land rights and culture. Although thousands of GfbV members supported the appeal with letters and postcards the G8 states did not take measures for the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples, criticised the GfbV. On the contrary, the industrial nations with their run on the minerals speeded up further the selling-out of the rights of the native peoples. In the past few days the G8 states Russia, USA and Canada have emphasised their territorial claims to mining of minerals with expeditions. With their race for raw materials these countries are endangering the survival of the 400,000 native inhabitants, who have lived in the Arctic for centuries.

„The Inuit in Greenland are those ho are suffering the most from the climate change in the world”, said the GfbV. The dramatic melting of ice is endangering not only the basis of subsistence of the native people, who live traditionally from hunting and fishing, but also their culture and identity. So hunting is becoming more and more difficult on account of the unsettled weather, excessively high temperatures, ice floes and the dramatic drop in the animal species (polar bears, seals and walsuses). The government of Greenland wants the Inuit to catch more fish. But since through the climate change toxic substances are being released, which previously were locked up in the ice, fish are often contaminated with quicksilver, PCB and other poisonous matter. So Inuit women are being advised by the health centres not to breast-feed their children, since these toxic substances are present in their milk in too high a concentration.