“I can’t support it since they’ve started to arrest our people.”

Nunavik hunters are in revolt over the region's shrinking beluga quotas, saying they threaten their right to survive.

"The pride, the tradition and the self-esteem you feel when you're going to bring back a beluga for your family – that's something that's going to be taken away from us," said Paulusi Novalinga, president of the region's Anguvigaq hunters and trappers organization.

Nunavik hunters will keep hunting beluga this year, even if it means breaking the law, Novalinga said, unless their demands are met.

He's calling for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to eliminate all quotas, shelve the current beluga management plan, and drop any pending charges against beluga hunters.

Novalinga says he also wants the federal Species at Risk Act amended to recognize the Inuit right to survive.

This was the message he delivered two weeks ago to members of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, who promised to follow up on Novalinga's concerns after the hearing.

DFO officials, who also spoke earlier to the committee, remain baffled by the lack of support for the present beluga management plan. They wonder why Nunavik leaders can't divide the region's beluga quota, taking into account each community's needs, as is done with new social housing units.

Last year, hunters exceeded Hudson Strait's quota of 135 belugas by 14. Those 14 belugas will be subtracted from this year's quota.

So, hunters can look forward this year to a total quota of 121 belugas from the Hudson Strait, or about eight per Nunavik community, a much lower number than a regional quota of 360 set five years ago.

In 2007, hunters may also travel to James Bay to hunt 30 more belugas. But the waters of the Eastern Hudson and Ungava bays remain closed to beluga-hunting.

"We intend to follow the present management plan. That's the plan for now, but we are continuing our consultations," Michel Tremblay, director of aboriginal fisheries at the DFO in Quebec City, said in an interview last week.

But this plan has lost even the backing of Novalinga, a long-time advocate of beluga management. He says he's hurt and disappointed that quota cuts and the laying of charges against people for illegal beluga-hunting are happening under his leadership.

"I'm going down in history as the man who was president of the HTO when people lost their right to live off the land like they always have done," he said.

Three Nunavik hunters face charges for killing belugas since DFO closed the hunt in 2005. They're to appear in court this June. Charges against seven hunters for over-hunting in 2006 are still under investigation.

"I can't support it, not since they've started to arrest our people. This is happening for the first time in the history of Nunavik, and I do not accept we are being charged for trying to live off the land," he said.

Novalinga wants money from the federal justice department to help pay for the legal defence of beluga hunters charged under the Fisheries Act.

At the heart of the dispute between hunters and the DFO are differing opinions about the nature of beluga populations.

Nunavik hunters don't think the belugas are endangered because they believe they see huge numbers of belugas in their coastal waters. They say belugas belong to a migratory species that travels widely around eastern Arctic waters.

Novalinga said beluga migration is a major reason why it's unfair to charge hunters in Nunavik. He says the region's hunters kill the same belugas that Nunavummiut from the Kivalliq hunt without quotas or penalties.

According to Novalinga, the timing of beluga surveys means that DFO science is flawed.

He says biologists survey for belugas around Nunavik in August when the whales have already left the region's waters. That's a bit like looking for Canada geese in the southern United States in the spring when they're already headed for the Arctic, Novalinga said.

"There's more beluga than there were 20 years ago. I have seen that myself because we haven't hunted beluga here for 20 years. For sure, they're multiplying," he said.

Novalinga wants the quotas lifted until all Inuit regions can work together to find a better way of managing their common beluga population.

Although the DFO agrees that there are more than 50,000 belugas in Hudson Bay, its biologists say belugas in the Eastern Hudson and the Ungava Bay are separate stocks and need protection.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada also determined these two beluga stocks are endangered and recommended adding them to the list of endangered species under the Species at Risk Act.

DFO biologist Mike Hammill has made calculations that show these two Nunavik beluga populations will become extinct if hunters continue to hunt them or over-hunt in the Hudson Strait where migrating beluga from many stocks mingle.

"If it gets into the international community, how will it look for the people and their image? Once you start to damage that reputation it's very hard to recover," he said.

Hammill also disputes the idea that DFO has no control over the Nunavut beluga hunt. He points to beluga quotas in the Cumberland Sound, noting Section 5.3.3 of the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement says the DFO may restrict or limit harvesting if there is a valid conservation concern.

Hammill suggests that all parties should resolve not to hunt until there's some consensus – a position that's far from the elimination of quotas, which Novalinga is proposing.

DFO officials plan to attend the HTO's annual general meeting in Umiujaq at the end of this month. They also want to wrap up their community visits before the hunting season starts.

Hunters say they're already seeing beluga along the eastern Hudson Bay coast.