Attu: Climate change and Inuit resilience in the Arctic

First in a three-part series examining climate change in the Arctic

Attu.

It’s a small, remote settlement of roughly 200 Inuit on the southwest coast of Greenland. When it comes to climate change, Arctic communities like this one might be the canary in the coal mine.

They’re facing immense uncertainty. As the climate changes, so is their land. And their livelihood.

In recent years, they’ve seen a decline in fish such as the Atlantic cod, and are having to go further out into the water to be able to catch enough of them.

They’re also seeing more muskox on reindeer migration paths, which wasn’t as common an occurrence before. That shows migration paths are changing, because the two animals don’t get along well.

The United Nations weather agency reported in 2017 the Arctic was warming at twice the rate that global temperatures were rising.

For residents like Akatu Jakobsen, it is losing their home as they know it that is most jarring.

Akatu Jakobsen, left, with a friend near the fish factory in Attu. He explains that Atlantic cod and halibut is one of Greenland’s largest exports and the main source of income for local residents. With climate change and limited capacity, however, community members are having to go farther out to catch enough fish for their livelihood. (Photo by Meral Jamal)

Jakobsen’s family roots stretch back generations on this rugged coast.

Born in 1950s Aasiaat, a town nearly four hours north of Attu, he has spent much of his life sailing and fishing around these waters.

“I love to sail in the vicinity of Aasiaat and fish,” he says of growing up in Greenland. “This is my life and I am inclined to think that when I stop working, then I shall have all the time for myself.”

A proud Inuk, Jakobsen says from the traditional food on the table to the livelihoods of his people, climate change is impacting the community in real time.

It’s why he believes the work he does is so important.

Jakobsen is co-ordinator for the PISUNA project, a local initiative to monitor climate change that draws on traditional knowledge to help preserve the Inuit way of life.

“The start-up of the PISUNA project was in October of 2009 with the assistance of NORDECO in Denmark, where Finn Danielsen worked as a consultant,” Jakobsen says. “He built the project.”

NORDECO is an international development research and consulting firm wholly owned by the non-profit Nordic Foundation for Development and Ecology. It partnered with the Greenlandic government to launch PISUNA the same year Greenland’s Self-Government Act came into effect.

The aim of the initiative is threefold:

• pilot trapper/fisherman-based climate monitoring;
• strengthen capacity to monitor living resources and use of resources among community members and national authorities on the ground; and
• give decision-makers access to experiences from locally based monitoring in the Arctic.

Nuunoq Per Ole Frederiksen, pictured here with Akatu Jakobsen, is a hunter and part of PISUNA’s monitoring team. Along with collecting data on how the local wildlife and environment is changing in Attu, Frederiksen has championed the initiative’s work across the world, including when it received 350,000 Danish krone at the 2018 Nordic Council Environment Prize. (Photo by Meral Jamal)

Local impacts, international recognition

Jakobsen’s friend Nuunoq Per Ole Frederiksen, a hunter with PISUNA, has been at the forefront of conversations about the initiative in Greenland and around the world.

In 2018, he accepted the Nordic Council Environment Prize from the then-prime minister of Norway, Erna Solberg.

The monetary award of 350,000 Danish krone recognizes a company, organization or individual in the Nordics for their work in integrating respect for nature in their business or work.

In Attu, Frederiksen tells about the remarkable success of PISUNA on the ground, and of the challenges it faces beyond the community.

One of the big hurdles, he says, is that researchers and policymakers around the world want to use data collected by the initiative but often underestimate its value.

He says in Greenland and beyond, no one seems to find local data as important as “professional measurements that don’t come from a time when we go hunting and camping.”

Akatu Jakobsen and Nuunoq Per Ole Frederiksen, left, with local hunters and fishermen who are part of the PISUNA project in Attu. Of the 12 Greenlandic communities the initiative was launched in, it now remains only in one. (Photo by Meral Jamal)

The PISUNA project in Greenland is one of the first climate-monitoring programs established in the Arctic. It is also the first Inuit-led one, launched officially across Greenlandic communities such as Attu and Ilulissat in 2009.

Similar projects have since popped up in Canada, with the first Inuit stewardship program piloted in Nunavut in 2018.

Now operational in Sanikiluaq, Arctic Bay, Clyde River, Grise Fiord, Pond Inlet and Resolute Bay, the Nauttiqsuqtiit Program supports Inuit leadership as environmental stewards to guide marine conservation and management in the Qikiqtani region.

Despite receiving significant funding and support, PISUNA is a case study for the challenges climate stewardship programs face, especially those led by Inuit.

This is because of the 12 Greenlandic communities where PISUNA was launched nearly 15 years ago, it is now only operating in Attu.

Jakobsen says it faces three main challenges: the divide between western science and traditional knowledge; the way data collected on the ground is used to guide policymaking; and competing visions that Inuit communities and non-Inuit decisionmakers might have.

“The first people who end up [experiencing climate change] are people who were just out in the wild most of the time,” Jakobsen says.

“I still hope that the decisionmakers will use bigger ears to hear what the local people say and do and feel how nature has changed.”

Adeline Salomonie, director for marine and wildlife with Qikiqtani Inuit Association, says the Nauttiqsuqtiit Program has seen success in its five years operating, especially in helping address food sovereignty and security during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But like PISUNA, while Nauttiqsuqtiit has been positive for the community, its role in influencing policymaking and bridging the divide between science and traditional knowledge remains a work in progress.

“In terms of collecting the data for policymaking decisions, I think because this program is fairly new … we’re still collecting all that data but we share it with the board, we do share it with the local hunters and trappers associations and other community members.”

As PISUNA in Greenland enters its 15th year and Nauttiqsuqtiit in Nunavut enters its fifth, the two Inuit-led climate stewardship programs may have the opportunity to learn from each other.

The question at the heart of this remains: How to go from simply funding climate stewardship programs, to sustaining them in the long term?

— With files from Diellza Murtezaj

This feature was written as part of the Nordic-Canadian Fellowship in Environmental Journalism through Nordic Bridges, an initiative by the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. It is the first of three stories exploring the challenges and successes experienced by Inuit-led climate stewardship programs in Greenland and Canada.