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June 2, 2006

Sacred island to become protected park

The nomadic, reindeer-herding Nenet people in the oil-rich region of Yamal in Russia plan to make Vaigach Island a national park, to protect one of their most sacred places.

The Nenets’ regional government and the World Wildlife Fund recently signed an agreement on collaboration, which obliges the regional authorities to protect certain zones.

Unfortunately, most of the Nenet shrines on Vaigach have already been ravaged or even destroyed, although untouched idols in the middle of the island were reportedly visited and bowed to even in the beginning of 20th century.

During the Soviet period, most of the unique religious monuments were destroyed and visits prohibited.

A Gulag prisoner camp was built in the southwestern part of Vaigach where prisoners mined zinc, and hundreds of the Nenets were forced to relocate.

About 10 years ago, Vaigach became a natural reserve and the destruction of its monuments was stopped. Vaigach now attracts poachers from Murmansk and Arkhangelsk Oblasts, who illegally hunt for walrus and polar bear.

June 2, 2006

Pink salmon moving north

In recent years, salmon have turned up in the Arctic Ocean at the top of Alaska.

Scientists say salmon and other marine life are responding to warmer waters and reduced ice in the Bering Sea and the Beaufort Sea.

Last summer near Nome, Alaska, fishery biologists noted a huge increase in pink salmon runs in the region’s rivers and streams: on the North River, a record 1.6 million pink salmon passed a counting station.

A survey conducted in the mid-1990s in the Barrow area counted six king salmon and 51 pink salmon. A 2003 survey there found 439 king salmon and 18,048 pink salmon.

A team of U.S. and Canadian researchers, in the March 10 edition of the journal Science, said shrinking ice and warmer air and water temperatures in the northern Bering Sea are leading to an expansion in pollock, a bottom-feeding fish used to make fish sticks, and in pink salmon, which feed on pollock.

“Local observations indicate that pink salmon are now colonizing rivers that drain into the Arctic Ocean north of Bering Strait,” the article says.

The article also says migratory gray whales are extending their Arctic stays, with listening devices at Barrow detecting the sound of whale calls during winter.

June 2, 2006

Kyoto countries plan next steps

Last week, Canada and other countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol re-affirmed plans to set new, tougher caps on greenhouse gas emissions after 2012.

A conference of these 160 countries in Bonn, Germany set no timetable for agreeing on the targets, but talks are planned for the next two years.

It was the first meeting of a group set up by Kyoto countries last December in Montreal to work out a roadmap for emissions cuts beyond 2012.

Kyoto obliges 35 industrialized nations to cut emissions by at least 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Also last week, Rona Ambrose, the federal environment minister, announced a new plan to make all gas at least five per cent renewable fuel by 2010.

Environmental groups said the strategy to promote ethanol is an attempt to distract Canadians from their lack of commitment to fight global warming.

June 2, 2006

Congress approves Alaskan oil drilling

The U.S. House of Representatives voted last Thursday to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Those in favour of drilling the oil reserves say ANWR would reduce the need for oil imports, while environmentalists argue the region should remain a protected wildlife refuge for caribou, polar bears and migratory birds.

The refuge was set aside for protection in 1960 and expanded in 1980, with a demand that its oil could be developed if Congress approved.

Meanwhile, the North Slope village of Kaktovik, a supporter of oil drilling in ANWR, is opposing offshore drilling by a giant oil company, Shell.

Kaktovik’s City Council has passed a resolution calling Shell “a hostile and dangerous force” and authorizing the mayor to take legal or other actions necessary to “defend the community.”

In a news release issued with the resolution, Mayor Lon Sonsalla said Shell had failed to address village concerns about how it would keep seismic testing scheduled for this summer from disturbing migratory bowhead whales and how the company would operate safely in unpredictable sea ice.

June 2, 2006

Greenland bears loaded with pollutants

Polar bears from East Greenland contain the highest recorded concentrations of organo-halogen contaminants of any mammals in the world, says a new study.

Among the 75 polar bears examined in the study, seven different types of renal lesions were found.

The study suggests that contaminants could be partially to blame.

The study, published in the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry journal, shows the impacts to polar bears from long-term exposure to OHCs, which include DDT, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs).

PCBs and PBDEs are known as flame-retardants. These compounds are used in electronic circuit boards and cases, furniture, building materials, pesticides and lubricants.

In polar bears, OHCs are transferred from mother to fetus and to offspring by breast-feeding.

The study raises the possibility of OHC transfer among people who live in the Arctic.

And they criticized the ethanol plan because the refineries that turn corn into fuel use energy sources that emit greenhouse gas emissions, such a gas or coal.

June 2, 2006

Greenland talks about Hans in Ottawa

Josef Motzfeldt, the finance and foreign affairs minister for Greenland, was in Ottawa late last month, where he met Peter Van Loan, the parliamentary secretary to Peter MacKay, Canada’s foreign affairs minister.

The two continued discussions on which country may lay claim to Hans Island, the tiny, disputed hunk of rock between northern Ellesmere Island and Greenland.

Motzfeld said Canada and Denmark-Greenland were likely to conduct a scientific survey of the area to help decide jurisdiction.

“The scientists will tell us Hans Island belongs to Greenland. If the Canadians don’t agree with that decision, then we have to add a third institution, like the United Nations, to make the decision,” he told Reuters in an interview.

June 2, 2006

Whale watching by webcam in Barrow

Scientists in Alaska recently installed a radar and web camera on the tallest building in Barrow, as well as sounding probes at sites above and below the ice.

That’s so whalers can download data on ice thickness and strength as well as the location of leads where whales surface, reports the Anchorage Daily News. On the web site, there’s also historical data and new information on sea level and tide charts.

According to Eugene Brower, head of the Barrow Whaling Captains Association, the information is important this year because low temperatures and winds from the north have pushed the pack ice toward shore, building a frozen shelf that extends eight miles.

The few open paths of water through the pack ice keep slamming shut, delaying the whaling season. When whaling does begin for Barrow’s quota of 22 bowhead, support camps for 41 crews may have to wait near the forward edge of that shorefast ice.

Volunteers in Barrow are working round-the-clock to relay information to whalers to make their whale hunt safer and more successful.

To see the Web cam, go to: www.gi.alaska.edu/brwice/.

June 2, 2006

AIDS, development on UN indigenous agenda

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched the action plan for the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on May 15, as representatives from around the world gathered at U.N. headquarters in New York City to meet on this issue.

The fifth annual session of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues met through May 26 and started developing recommendations for the Second International Decade.

“Let us aim to make it mean something positive — a change for the better — in the life of every indigenous person, wherever he or she may live,” Annan said.

Annan pledged to present a U.N. declaration on indigenous peoples’ rights for adoption as soon as possible.

In some countries, where the rights of indigenous peoples have been barely acknowledged, the declaration will be particularly important, Forum chairperson Victoria Tauli-Corpuz said.

“Let us pledge in this Hall of the U.N. General Assembly our commitment to achieve these objectives, so that in the year 2015 we will come back and be proud of what we have achieved in terms of ending discrimination, marginalization, oppression and extreme poverty of indigenous peoples, because we took seriously the challenge to create partnerships for action and dignity,” she said.

During the forum, members discussed the absence of information on HIV/ AIDS in indigenous communities.

The meeting also looked at the inclusion of traditional knowledge and full participation of indigenous peoples in decisions that impact their lives, “based on the principle of free, prior and informed consent.”

June 2, 2006

New self-government movement in Greenland

Greenland has a new movement, Inussuk.

Launched on May Day, the group will fight for more autonomy for Greenland.

Mininnguaq Kleist, the secretary and adviser to Lars Emil Johansen, one of two MPs representing Greenland in the Danish parliament, said Inussuk is a network where national organizations and parties will co-operate to strengthen Greenland’s move towards independence.

“The goal is to involve people, because it is the people who decide which way we shall go,” Kleist said.

Inussuk’s member organizations represent about 20,000 to 30,000 Greenlanders, and include everything from youth groups to powerful economic and commercial interests, Kleist said.

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