Climate change solutions a ‘new way of colonizing’ Indigenous people, delegate tells UN
NunatuKavut Community Council member says push for renewable energy fast-tracking mining permits on Indigenous land
Dr. Amy Hudson speaks at the United Nations permanent forum on Indigenous issues in New York City in April. (Photo courtesy of NunatuKavut)
Dr. Amy Hudson has returned from the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues with renewed vigour to fight for NunatuKavut Inuit’s way of life in the face of climate change.
Hudson, who was part of a four-member delegation from the NunatuKavut Community Council to attend the forum in New York in late April, says hearing stories from other Indigenous delegations who continue to struggle against Eurocentric governments was “personally humbling.”
“When you come to these … global spaces with Indigenous Peoples from all parts of the world and you’re hearing and sharing in these realities where you see all these similarities — similar experiences and impacts of colonization, similar approaches and assertions of self-government and self-determination from Indigenous people — it’s strengthening … and certainly validat(ing) in the sense that we’re all in this together,” said Hudson.
The NunatuKavut Community Council is the representative governing body for the 6,000 Inuit of south and central Labrador, about nine per cent of Canada’s Inuit population.
In 2019, the community council and Canada signed a memorandum of understanding to negotiate self-determination. While those negotiations are ongoing, the council continues to exercise its inherent rights to self-government in such areas as health, education, land and resources.
This year’s theme of the forum was “Indigenous Peoples, human health, planetary and territorial health and climate change: A rights-based approach.”
NunatuKavut Inuit are part of a global community and need to be part of that wider discussion even as they feel the impacts of climate change at home, said Hudson.
“It was really important to have the opportunity to learn from the global community, the global Indigenous community, but to also have an opportunity to share some of our stories and some of our history and to talk about the importance of any concepts of governance in responding to climate change issues,” she said.
The delegation was allowed only three minutes to make a formal presentation in which “we really situated who Inuit are, where we live, and really centred around our relationship and our deep sense of belonging to our ancestral lands and why that’s important,” said Hudson.
Key impacted areas and emerging issues were also outlined in those three minutes.
A side panel event the council hosted allowed the delegation to fill in the details.
Already, said Hudson, sea ice conditions are changing and sea levels are rising.
Labrador’s coastal communities rely on sea ice for transportation to their ancestral traditional places, which allow for intergenerational knowledge transfer and gathering of traditional foods.
Unpredictable weather patterns and changing temperatures are also impacting the ocean and having adverse effects on the fishing industry.
Coastal erosion and rising sea levels are disturbing cultural heritage and archeological sites.
Hudson also drew attention to the animal-human relationship and the polar bears in her home community of the Island of Ponds, an island off of the east coast of Labrador. She said the bears are roaming the entire coast, something unheard of in years past, showing aggression and are less wary of people.
“We’re really now developing relationships with academia so that we can better understand what are causing these changes and how we may be able to mitigate and adapt to the changes that we’re seeing,” said Hudson.
The side panel event also allowed the council to “talk about climate governance and from the perspective of Inuit resistance, resilience and adaptation.”
Hudson said NunatuKavut Inuit are drawing from their own intergenerational knowledge and expertise to inform their understanding of climate change and how to move forward.
“Our approach to responding to climate change must be holistic and it must come from Inuit values. It must come from a place where Inuit want to see themselves in generations to come. So how we respond, the knowledge we have to share and contribute, is important,” said Hudson.
Unfortunately, western and Eurocentric governments are reluctant to engage Indigenous Peoples in that important conversation, she said.
Hudson pointed to what she called Canada’s “arbitrary recognition of Indigenous rights” despite passage of the United Nations Declaration Act, which sets out ways to incorporate the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into federal legislation. The federal government is working on an action plan with Indigenous communities and organizations to make that happen.
“We recognize our responsibility to our lands, waters and ice and future generations, and to our natural environment, so we have to be a part of this conversation with (the government) in equal ways, and those ways certainly must be understood that our rights need to be upheld and we can’t disconnect our right to self-governance from our inherent rights as Indigenous people,” said Hudson.
In Canada and globally, the push for renewable energy as a means to tackle climate change is a “new way of colonizing” Indigenous people, said Hudson, as traditional lands are being exploited for mineral extraction and mining companies are seeing permits fast-tracked.
“What I understood from the forum at the UN was that Indigenous Peoples are asserting and upholding their rights and making the connection between their rights to the work of responding to global climate change,” said Hudson.
“I didn’t hear anyone in the Indigenous community abdicate their responsibilities to responding to climate change. I heard that we all have strength and knowledge that are important to ensuring a just future for our community.”
These “Dr’s” and educator types used to be critical thinkers, now theyre becoming puppets for the woke masses.
Don’t do enough to support climate change adaptation projects, woke left will find a way to criticize.
Then, support climate change adaptation projects and woke left will still find a way to criticize. Like the boy who cried wolf, throwing the “c-word” around at anything and everything is getting old, real quick.
Let’s put this in context, the speaker had 3 minutes to make an impact. One way to do that, arguably the best way given current cultural obsessions, is to declare the push for “renewable energy” as (obviously) a form of neo-colonialism.
*Boom* Great attention grabber. Maybe even a headline! As we can see it works.
Admittedly, my first reaction is to feel annoyed at ‘academics’ who plays these cheap parlour tricks. But to be fair, it would be interesting to hear some examples of her point, particularly in Canada.
Does she have any?
That is what balanced journalism should look for. Unfortunately, it is not something we see often.
There is much controversy with regard to this “Inuit” group. Is this article an attempt to strengthen the validity of NunatuKavut Inuit as Inummariit? There have been recent cases of people benefiting from being “Inuit” when they are not. What has been the process to determine NunatuKavut Inuit are who they claim to be?
They get to decide, not outsiders like Nunavut Inuit.
Neither of these options is a satisfactory one. Surely there are better ways of determining the ancestry of a group than “whatever they say”?
For better or worse, that is the way it is done in this country – self-identification of ethnicity.
Their people from their “Inuit communities” proved that they are not Inuit. Stats Canada. Six Nunatukavut communities don’t have one Inuk living in any of them. Great benefits though. The people of Nunatukavut are frauds. Everything they have was and is obtained by fraud.
This same organization said they were Labrador Métis Nation in the ’90’s than changed it to Inuit Métis (whatever that means) than in 2010 they changed their name to NunatuKavut community council. This process is highly suspect, yet you say we should take them by their word and acknowledge whoever they say they are? That is a pretty weak argument.
Why are non-indigenous people representing the indigenous?!
Inuit and Innu and ITK all agree that these folks aren’t indigenous. Just more folks taking advantage of opportunities, like the Gill sisters.
Wearing a silapa or sealskin doesn’t make them indigenous.
That man is a blight.
So, do you want outsiders deciding who is Inuit? Hmm, an awful lot of mixed-ancestry ‘Inuit’ kicking around Nunavut. Would you be okay with outsiders deciding if they are Inuk or not?
How is this case any different?
laugh out loud
I’m trying to sort out why this article is even appearing in Nunatsiaq News. I don’t see any connection or relevance to Nunavut. Am I missing something?
I did notice that it appeared yesterday at windspeaker.com
https://windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/climate-change-solutions-becoming-new-way-colonizing-indigenous-peoples-inuit
And that it was written by a ‘Local Journalism Initiative Reporter’ which appears to be a government funded position of some kind. My guess is that Nunatsiaq purchased this piece with government funding. Is that correct, Corey? I admit I am shooting in the dark here.
That said, I will suggest this piece was chosen because, given the content, it is likely to trigger two camps; the anti-woke (see above) and the Nunavut Inuit who reject the NunatuKavut as ‘real Inuit’.
All this ties back to my “reader engagement” hypothesis, which says clicks, views and comments are good for commerce.
How am I doing, Corey?
Two thoughts:
Human-made climate is not thing; common folks must go back to talking about the weather, leave climate discussion to historians and those thinking about moving to the tropics
There is nothing less important to society than ancestry; nothing more important to an individual than his genetics