COPENHAGEN – Inuit communities need funds to adapt to climate change in the Arctic, including measures to build communal deep freezers to store game because warming is reducing their hunting season, an Inuit leader said yesterday.
The Inuit, the indigenous people of Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Russia, have traditionally hunted for Arctic species from seal to polar bear, whale to caribou.
“In Canada we see climate changes on a day-to-day basis,” said Violet Ford, a Canadian official of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC).
Ms Ford, who was born and raised in the Inuit community of Makkovik, Labrador, said more funds were needed for adaptation and response to climate change in the Arctic and in developing countries.
“That should also be going to the Inuit communities as a response to climate change,” Ms Ford told a news conference in the Danish capital. “We need infrastructure,” Ms Ford said. “We want community deep freezers if the hunting patterns change so much that we can only go hunting a few times a year.”
ICC chairman James Stotts from Alaska told the news conference that his 78-year-old uncle fell through the ice and froze to death at a time of year when the ice normally would be thick and safe.
“Inuits have to find other ways to store their meat. Some of our villages are literally falling into the seas because of erosion,” he said.
Greenland Inuit Aqqaluk Lynge, ICC vice-chairman, said that the ice cap was melting much faster than before, which would reduce winter ice and threaten the Inuit way of life. “The hunters’ area is very large . . . they drive around on dog sledges, but for us the dog sledges are disappearing,” Mr Lynge said. – (Reuters)