When the ground melts underneath your feet…

Göttingen

When the ground melts underneath your feet…

For centuries more than 30 indigenous peoples have been living north of the polar circle from hunting ice bears, walruses and seals, from breeding reindeer, fishing and collecting. They have always managed to adapt their way of life to the changing conditions of the environment. The climate change however is changing their habitat so fast, radically and destructively that an adjustment hardly seems possible. The indigenous people are left just watching the ice-bears starving and certain kinds of plants no longer growing. The winter has become shorter and warmer. Glaciers shrink or melt away completely and people are dying because their accustomed paths across the ice crust, which has become thinner, are no longer safe. The more than 400,000 indigenous people in the arctic are already confronted with the consequences of the climate change, to which they have made almost no contribution. For decades they have resisted the production of gas and oil on their land, which is destroying their habitat and affecting the health of the indigenous people. Now they are threatened with the destruction of their means of subsistence by the global oil boom. The amount of nitrogen in the atmosphere, which is principally caused by the climate change, results from the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal. If the industrial countries do not finally change their energy policies and reduce the carbon dioxide discharge, the people in the Arctic will find the ground melting away under their feet.

And time runs through our hands…

The Arctic, in which the climate changes twice or three times faster than in the global average, is an indicator for the global climate catastrophe. However the reactions of those responsible are far from showing the way and giving a good example. Instead of giving help to the indigenous people of the Arctic, including the indigenous people more in international climate politics and slowing down the climate change with responsible energy policies, many corporations and governments are on the lookout for the economic chances of offered by an ice-free Arctic. Where ice turns into water raw materials can be transported more cheaply by sea. Following the over-fishing of most of the oceans fishing fleets see new possibilities in the far north. Oil companies are already trying to secure the rights of exploiting further resources under the melting icecap. From the Saami in Lapland, through the Evenks in Siberia, the Yup’ik and Gwich’in in Alaska to the Inuit in Greenland indigenous groups from three continents are warning of the destruction of this unique natural region. What the conservationists see as a world cultural heritage, for the indigenous people is the land of their ancestors, in which they have lived for centuries. They notice the consequences of the climate change day by day and see their right to health, to food, their culture, the safety of their towns and other human rights infringed. For them a new climate policy is not a luxury, but a matter of survival. It is only the industrial countries which can slow down the climate change, for they are the main causes of it. At the next meeting of the signatory states of the UN climate convention from 28.11. till 09.12.2005 in Montreal the passing of effective measures is urgent in order to reduce the speed and degree of the climate change. The indigenous people also need more support in coping with severe damage, which has already been registered. In addition to financial aid for the indigenous people greater attention must be paid to their knowledge of nature and the consequences of the climate change.

„What we are facing today, you will be facing tomorrow.”

The Arctic is a barometer of the climate change and the Inuit are the quicksilver in this barometer.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier from Northern Quebec, Canada and Chairperson of the Inuit Conference

Translation: Norton Paine