Nunavik’s Sheila Watt-Cloutier wins “alternative” Nobel prize

Kuujjuaq-born Arctic environmental and human rights activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier signs copies of her book, The Right to be Cold, at an even in Ottawa this past March 10. (FILE PHOTO)

The Inuit climate change activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier is one of four recipients of the 2015 Right to Livelihood Award, an honour given out each year by a Swedish-based charitable foundation as an alternative to the Nobel Prize.

“Receiving the Right Livelihood Award is a heartfelt honour which I humbly accept,” Watt-Cloutier said in a statement published on the organization’s website.

The Right Livelihood Award Foundation, based in Stockholm, says that it’s a “politically independent and non-ideological platform” that honours activists for accomplishments in environmental activism, social justice and poverty reduction.

The organization said they chose Watt-Cloutier as a recipient this year “for her lifelong work to protect the Inuit of the Arctic and defend their right to maintain their livelihoods and culture, which are acutely threatened by climate change.”

To support that, they cite a long list of accomplishments, including her work:

• with the Kativik School Board in the early 1990s;

• with Makivik Corp. as corporate secretary;

• as president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council-Canada on lobbying for the Stockholm Convention on reduction of persistent organic pollutants, or POPs;

• to establish a link between climate change and Inuit human rights; and,

• the recent publication of her book, The Right to Be Cold.

Watt-Cloutier has also been given the United Nations Champion of the Earth Award and the Governor General’s Northern Medal. In 2006, she became an officer of the Order of Canada.

And in 2007, two Norwegian MPs nominated her for the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Al Gore, the former United States vice president.

The three other recipients of the Right to Livelihood Award this year are Tony de Brum of the Marshal Islands, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera of Uganda and Gino Strada of Italy.