Inuit Summit on Resource Development

Last June and July I attended the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) General Assembly held in Nuuk, Greenland. As past President of ICC, I enjoy the General Assembly meetings, held over the course of a week. During the day we discuss the political, social, and economic issues in our respective countries – Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and Russia. In the evening we enjoy each other’s cultural presentations – dance, singing, film, theatre, and this year circus!

The ICC Assembly was held during a time when each day news headlines in many countries featured the latest reports of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile Inuit leaders were contemplating offshore oil developments in the Arctic. While we didn’t shy away from discussing what was happening in the Gulf of Mexico, we also had to face the very difficult issues related to offshore oil developments, and other contentious resource development issues –uranium mining for example - head on.

We decided to hold a meeting on those very issues, and wrote it into the ICC Nuuk Declaration, under article 20, that we as Inuit leaders would meet again to tackle those difficult issues.

Last week in Ottawa we held the Inuit Leaders Summit on Resource Development. Over the course of two days we heard numerous presentations from academics, experts in regulatory issues, and Inuit leaders, and discussed among ourselves. ICC had commissioned a series of “white papers” on relevant topics, and altogether compiled more than 600 pages of background documents to supplement the testimony of the experts on Day One of the Summit.

Resource development projects are not new in the Arctic. We’ve had mines in the Arctic for many years. Nickel, gold, and diamond mines, for example. And we’ve had onshore oil and gas development too. What we haven’t had is offshore oil development, or uranium mining, however in both cases there is interest from companies to explore the potential resources in our regions.

Over the course of the two-day Summit we all became well informed of the issues related to these specific areas of resource development. As Inuit we are very very careful about entering into economic development projects that may harm, or jeopardize our precious Arctic environment in any way. We depend on it for our food, and for our way of life. Any economic development projects that involve resources of this nature must be sustainable and not harm the environment.

As leaders, we also have a responsibility to our people. To ensure that economic opportunities flow to our communities, and our young people can hope for brighter futures. As you can see it’s a delicate balance. As leaders, we agreed to develop a Declaration of Responsible Resource Development in Arctic Regions. As we did with the Inuit Declaration on Arctic Sovereignty, we will develop this document over the next month, and then make it public. We also agreed that it will be presented at the next Arctic Council meeting to be held in Nuuk in May of this year. Finally, the government of Greenland and ICC have agreed to co-host our next meeting as Inuit leaders.

Some of the concerns we will address in the Declaration are, for example:

• ensuring that Inuit are the primary beneficiaries of resource development.
• respecting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Inuit legal rights.
• balancing the risks and benefits of development, and ensures that development is sustainable.
• respecting the Arctic Council’s “Arctic Offshore Oil and Gas Guidelines” as minimum standards.
• supporting an international mechanism for funds targeted towards liability and compensation for oil pollution damage resulting from offshore oil exploration and exploitation.
• requiring leaders to continue to work together, and with their respective governments, to aggressively address and pursue responsible resource development issues.
• requiring that environmental and social impacts from resource development be properly assessed.

We held a press conference at the close of our two-day Summit in Ottawa, with members of the international, national, and northern media in attendance. I look forward to working on the Declaration and making it public, and ensuring that development on these important issues takes place in a manner that respects our culture, our environment, and our future well being as Inuit, and as global citizens.

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