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January 20, 2006

Bathurst caribou decimated by wolves, bears, mines, climate

JOHN KOMAK
Special to Nunatsiaq News

As a former Bathurst Inlet resident, and a hunter and trapper from the area, I can understand why the Bathurst caribou herd has been declining rapidly for the last several years.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, residents hunted and trapped around the Bathurst Inlet area, where most people hunted and trapped for furs. And they contributed in maintaining healthy numbers of the Bathurst caribou herd. During that time, there was a wolf control program where wolves were hunted year round, and grizzly bears killed for their hides by local Inuit hunters.

Today, there is nobody doing any wolf-hunting in the area, except for a couple of people who still live there. That's why the wolf and grizzly populations have exploded to extremely high levels, which leaves the caribou herd in a state of very high risk.

As a former trapper from the area, I used to go out trapping with my dad around Daniel Moore Bay. I have personally observed the wolf population that follows the Bathurst caribou herd and was surprised how widespread it is.

In the wake of the caribou herd there is not a pack of wolves, but a herd of wolves, following right behind this caribou herd. After the wolves had disappeared towards the caribou, we followed the wolves, and encountered many, many freshly-killed caribou, not even consumed. My late father at that time was nearly killed along with his dog team, by that very large herd of wolves.

A caribou cow only makes one calf per year, but a family of wolves makes a litter of four to six a year, and grizzly bears tend to have one or two cubs a year. An adult wolf probably consumes 30 to 50 caribou a year. Grizzly bears probably consume around 10 to 30 caribou per year.

A family of eight wolves will consume about 400 caribou a year, and when you have a herd of wolves killing caribou in huge amounts, I believe the caribou will be decimated in a very short few years.

My late younger brother used to work at Lupin Gold Mine on Contwoyto Lake several years back when it was in operation, and it is right in the way of the Bathurst caribou herd migration route. He used to tell me that there were many, many dead caribou around the area.

The reason for this is that the mine dumped arsenic trioxide (used for removing gold) right onto the tundra, with no fencing where caribou were drinking the poison. You could see caribou tracks on this poison water and mud and you wonder why caribou are encountering brucellosis in their limbs. There are more mines proposed for the Bathurst Inlet area where there are no plans for the fencing-in of mine waste-water, which will continue to play havoc with the migrating caribou.

The mild weather, raining and re-freezing of snow may have contributed to the decline of caribou as well. Caribou need a lot of food energy to survive the winters, and snow-cover freezing and thawing may contribute to the starvation of many animals. Open waters in rivers also contribute to drowning of caribou on their migrations as well.

In order for the Bathurst caribou herd population to be back to healthy levels, all levels of government, federal and territorial will have to introduce predation control programs for wolves and grizzly bears.

Also, the regulators will have to have stricter regulations where mining companies proposing to open up mines must have fencing programs for their mine waste-water management.

As an elder, I believe if these programs are in place, the Bathurst caribou herd will once again be back to being 500,000 strong.

Editor's note: It's estimated that the Bathurst caribou herd's population declined from 460,000 in 1986, to 186,000 in 2003. John Komak, former Kitikmeot resident who now lives in Yellowknife, used to live in the Bathurst Inlet area.

Nunavut’s non-debate

The five candidates contesting Nunavut in the Jan. 23 federal election took part in a “forum” this week — at least, that’s how the event was billed.

But with one exception, the three-hour exercise was a utter failure for which the candidates themselves must carry most, if not all of the blame. And it’s what the candidates didn’t say, rather than what they did say, that is the most significant.

Here’s a short list of some of the issues that received little or no discussion:

• Global warming and the Kyoto Accord. For the past two years, this has been presented as a life-and-death issue for the people of the Arctic. Since it involves an international treaty, and other forms of multilateral co-operation, it’s an issue on which the federal government must take the lead. Why was Green Party candidate Feliks Kappi the only federal candidate to say anything about it?

• The devolution of federal control over public lands and resources, with a non-renewable resource revenue-sharing agreement between Nunavut and Ottawa. This is not only a step towards financial independence for the Government of Nunavut; it’s a step towards political independence. But our federal candidates have nothing to say about it.

• The failed implementation contract negotiations between Nunavut Tunngavuk Inc. and the federal government. It may be true that some of the administrative issues dividing the two sides are not relevant to most ordinary people, but there’s one issue that is: the NTI-GN proposal to spend $10 to $20 million of federal money on job training for Inuit. Our federal candidates, however, have nothing to say about this issue.

• A deep-sea port for Iqaluit. Iqaluit City Council worked on this idea all last year, vowing to make it a federal election issue. They succeeded, when Conservative leader Stephen Harper announced in late December that a Conservative government would build a deep-sea port in Iqaluit, for military and civilian use. Such a development would benefit the entire Baffin region, especially south Baffin, and give Nunavut an essential piece of infrastructure. But not even the Conservative candidate, David Aglukark, bothered to mention it during this week’s radio debate, held in a room full of Iqaluit voters.

The highlight of the evening, as it were, was a revelation from Bill Riddell, the NDP candidate.

He produced a Revenue Canada document that appears to contain a bombshell — that all Iqaluit workers living in staff housing must now pay income tax on the value of their rent subsidies, as of 2005. If it’s true, and that’s a big “if” right now, many wage-earners in Iqaluit would end up paying many thousands of dollars more on their income tax bill. And some employers will have to redo their T-4 slips for 2005, an administrative nightmare.

This may well turn out to be a standard-issue bureaucratic screw-up — an error or oversight that will soon be corrected.

But it does point out yet another issue that no candidate has bothered to discuss: the northern tax regime. As the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami pointed out several years ago, the tax system is an excellent tool, potentially, for helping northern residents cope with living costs that are now unbearable.

The Northern Residents Tax Deduction, worth up to $5,475 a year, hasn’t changed since 1985, when it was introduced to compensate people for the introduction of a policy that brought an end to tax-free northern benefits.

Since then, the cost of living has soared, especially in the eastern Arctic, where the entire Nunavut project has turned sour. A doubling of the northern tax benefit, coupled with a loosening of eligibility for it, would allow wage-earners to keep more of the money they earn. It could effectively eliminate income tax for many low-income people.

But whenever a federal election is held, no one bothers to raise the issue. It’s no wonder that voter turnouts are now dropping to the 40-per-cent level. It’s our politicians who are making politics irrelevant. JB

Inuit climate change petition does not seek money

“Our purpose is to educate and to inform”

SHEILA WATT-CLOUTIER

It was good to see the extensive coverage in Nunatsiaq News of the recent Montreal Conference of Parties to the UN climate change convention. More than 10,000 people attended from virtually every country in the world. Many Inuit attended and showed visitors from afar what climate change means in the Arctic and how it affects our culture and economy.

Following more than two years of work and with the support of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), I submitted on Dec. 7 a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights about climate change. Our event at the conference about the petition got worldwide coverage. Along with Arctic Day, where Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and our regions played a large part, the launching of the petition put the Arctic and Inuit on the map.

The petition — a lengthy and compelling document — names 63 Inuit, including me, from all four regions of northern Canada and northern Alaska who provided supportive testimony. But, of course, the petition is for each and every Inuk, and it draws heavily on traditional knowledge studies completed by ITK and the regional Inuit associations.

What is the petition, what does it say, why have we submitted it, and what’s the process from here?

First, let me say what it is not. We are not suing the Government of the United States. We are not approaching a court of law. We are not seeking damages, compensation, or money.

The 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, which uses our traditional knowledge, as well as science, says that the Arctic is warming and melting quickly, the rate of change is accelerating, and that emission of greenhouse gases worldwide is the cause. It concludes that marine mammals including polar bear, walrus, some species of seals and some species of marine birds are threatened with extinction by the middle to the end of the century, as is our hunting and food-sharing culture.

Many people in the South think climate change is only an environmental and economic issue. To Inuit, climate change also affects the viability of our hunting-based culture and the future of our families and communities. All that we are and hope to become is affected by climate change. This is why climate change is a human and human rights issue.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, based in Washington, D.C., has jurisdiction over North, Central, and South America. The commission works under the 1948 Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, which has been adopted and endorsed by Canada, the United States and other countries. It has dealt with and supported petitions by aboriginal peoples.

Our petition focuses on the United States for two reasons.

The United States emits about 25 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases, and it refuses to join the global consensus to jointly reduce emissions, using the Kyoto Protocol to the climate change convention. In Montreal, the U.S. even argued against co-ordinated global action when the protocol runs out in 2012.

Deep and absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the developed and developing worlds are needed to slow and eventually reverse climate change in order to protect the Arctic environment and Inuit culture. This won’t happen unless the United States joins the global consensus, sets an example and shows some leadership. The current reduction of emissions in the United States is not due to the efforts of the administration, but some individual states, enlightened industries, cities, and citizens, many of whom we are working with quite closely.

The petition does not mention Canada because Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions total only three to four per cent of the world’s total, the Government of Canada has ratified the Kyoto Protocol to the climate change convention, and earlier this year Ottawa adopted a plan to honour its Kyoto commitments.

Canada needs to do much more to combat climate change. Although our petition targets the United States, it helps to add pressure to the Government of Canada to walk its talk. Canada’s rhetoric must be matched by deeds and actions.

We have targeted the United States because the petition is also part of our political strategy to influence global decision-making. Targeting Canada would not provide us the political leverage we need, and might have let the United States off the hook.

We have asked the commission to come to the Arctic to meet Inuit and to find out just what climate change means to us. Specifically, we have asked the Commission to declare that the Government of the United States is violating the human rights of Inuit affirmed in the 1948 Declaration and other international human rights instruments.

We submitted the petition not in a spirit of confrontation but as a means of inviting the United States to talk with us. Our purpose is to educate and to inform. I made these points with the Ambassador of the United States to Canada when he visited Iqaluit some weeks ago. I reminded him that American as well as Canadian Inuit were using the petition to change the attitude and policy of his government.

As we petitioned the commission I thought of the future of my eight-year old grandson and the grandchildren of many. This petition is a gift. It is an act of generosity, respect, and responsibility on our part to our children and grandchildren who will live through the projections of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment unless we act now and stand up for our rights.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier is the elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.

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