INUIT WITNESS CLIMATE CHANGING
WebPosted Thu Nov 16 20:24:15 2000

WINNIPEG--For the first time in their oral history, Canada's Inuit 
people are seeing thunder and lightning. Electrical storms in the High 
Arctic are among the evidence of climate change being reported in a new 
study. 

 Melting permafrost 

 The research, conducted by the Winnipeg-based International Institute 
for Sustainable Development, is believed to be the first to intensively 
document aboriginal knowledge of changes to the Arctic environment. 

 Researchers spent a year in the community of Sachs Harbour, N.W.T., 
accompanying the locals on hunting and fishing trips. The scientists 
videotaped the natives telling of changes to climate and topography 
during their lifetimes. 

 The result is a portrait of environmental upheaval. Natives told of 
melting permafrost, thinning ice, mudslides, even the disappearance of 
an entire lake as its once-frozen shores gave way. 

 Inuit record signs of climate change 

 The freshwater fish that lived in the lake were killed as it drained 
into the ocean. 

 Scientist Graham Ashford, project manager at the institute in Winnipeg 
says the Inuit are the logical source for this type of information. He 
says that since they are out on the land all the time, they notice these 
sometimes very small changes. 

 Treading thin ice 

 Among the findings is the observation that thinner ice has made it 
dangerous to pursue polar bears and seals and more difficult for the 
bears to pursue their prey. Residents say the seals used to bask on ice 
floes in the harbour throughout the summer, but in recent summers the 
floes have disappeared. 

 People now see robins and barn swallows, species that never used to come 
so far north. There are unfamiliar beetles and sand flies. Melting 
permafrost is causing buildings to tilt and has ruined roads. 

 Graham Ashford 

 Ashford says climate change is no longer a theory. He says it's 
happening right now, and is affecting the lives of many of Canada's 
northern people. 

 He says the study underlines the need for Canada to take a lead in 
negotiations on climate change currently taking place in The Hague. 

 At the Kyoto conference of 1997, Canada committed itself to reducing 
greenhouse emissions six per cent from 1990 levels by 2010, but 
emissions have grown some 13 per cent since then. 

 
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