Nunavut conservationists coming together to share information on environment
World Wildlife Fund working to support network of local conservation activists
People from across Nunavut working to preserve the environment meet at a group session in Iqaluit held last December. (Photo courtesy of Emina Ida/WWF-Canada)
The World Wildlife Fund Canada has launched a knowledge exchange program in Nunavut to create a “sense of solidarity” among people involved in conservation across the territory.
The organization is trying to help local conservationists see how their work fits into the bigger picture of preserving the environment, said Erin Keenan, WWF-Canada’s senior manager of Arctic marine conservation, in an interview last week.
To do that, it brought together conservation leaders from Kugaaruk, Gjoa Haven, Taloyoak, Igloolik, Naujaat, Chesterfield Inlet and Coral Harbour in Iqaluit in December.
“We were very excited to share our challenges and ways with everybody,” said Jimmy Oleekatalik, manager of the Taloyoak Umaruliririgut Association, last week.
The workshop covered standard practices for search and rescue operations along with technological developments that make conservation work more efficient, such as equipment for testing water and ice.
“The way that we work at WWF Canada on Arctic conservation is very much about partnerships and helping community leaders and organizations to meet their own conservation priorities,” Keenan said.
Jimmy Ullikatalik, manager at Taloyoak Umaruliririgut Association, says Nunavut conservationists are “excited” to share their information. (Photo courtesy of Emina Ida/WWF-Canada)
Often WWF provides that support through the Government of Canada’s Indigenous Guardians Program, she said. The organization helps local groups plan how to put government funding to the best use.
The program was launched in 2017 and gives eligible Inuit, First Nations and Métis organizations federal funding for preservation of Indigenous laws, teachings and knowledge along with land conservation.
In 2021, the federal government announced up to $100 million in spending over five years for the program.
Keenan said the most important part of the conservation initiatives both by the federal government and WWF is that they’re led and conducted locally.
“It’s about recognizing the leadership and ideas that exist at the local level and helping them make those a reality, whether through providing funding or by providing equipment,” she said.
“We know our land,” said Frank Immingark, the first co-ordinator of the Guardian program in Kugaaruk.
In the past year, WWF supported the creation of Kugaaruk’s Guardian program within the local hunters and trappers association.
Since becoming Kugaaruk co-ordinator in 2023, Immingark went on a WWF-funded trip to see the Guardian program in Taloyoak and learn how it operates.
Now Kugaaruk has five guardians who participate in search and rescue operations in the community and help make the hunting area safer.
Since January, they have collected and recycled more than 300 five-gallon barrels left behind in the tundra by prospecting teams, said Immingark.
“We want hunters to be safe,” he said. “We are making sure that our animals are healthy. We are protecting our land.”
The local programs are set to expand and will create more jobs and engage more people in that kind of conservation work, Keenan said.
All this comes as close to six million square kilometres of the Arctic — including a large part of Nunavut — is set to be included among the WWF’s areas of natural conservation, according to a study published in April.
That will better allow experts and activists from northern regions of Canada, the U.S., Greenland and Russia to work together to protect the Arctic environment.
It’s a “clarion call for action,” according to the WWF website, aimed at helping world leaders “fulfil their commitment to the UN’s Global Biodiversity Framework by safeguarding and preserving 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030.”
Nice trip to iqaluit for the WWF to listen to land guardians should eat up some of that $100M. Wonder what’s next?
Forest in Kugaaruk? Maybe it should be Tundra?
It’s a “jungle” out there.
Heard of the Arctic Monkeys?
The Recycle programs don’t exists in Nunavut nor their is any services administered by the Territorial gov’t referral to Landfill/ Metal Scrapyard. The way system in Nunavut is service on landfill and metal scrapyard is Municipalities will burn garbage on landfill site to reduce waste. Take a visit in each Municipality and tour landfill/ metal scrapyard. This is right under the administration of CG&S.
I wonder if the GN employees in that room understand the difference between the obligations of their employers vs. their personal opinions…we’re they being paid by the GN to be there?
If asked about the meeting, a GN employee would respond with, “I don’t know. Something about the environment. They use too many big words and not enough pictures.”
😂🤣🥺
Lol! For real
Recycling is a myth anywhere on the planet. No such thing as “recycling”.
Seen documentaries of the recycling scam.😂🤪
You should question your documentaries and check yourself if they are telling you the truth. Right now about 45% of steel production comes from recycled metal, about 30% of the copper, and over 50% of the aluminum. Just under 70% of lead in use comes from recycling. You use toilet paper? Mostly recycled paper. Get something shipped from Amazon? The box it came in is mostly recycled paper.
Drop over to Asia, Africa to see what the Indigenous think of WWF, World Economic Forum (WEF) conservation projects protecting 30% of the land for nature by 2030 (30×30).
Their “nature”. The military controls their “conservation” lands to keep local people, tribes out. If they enter their protected lands to hunt, gather plants for food or medicinal purposes, they’re arrested, beaten and even killed because accused of poaching. Land they used for hundreds of years. But big game, hunters allowed and encouraged to hunt.
WWF taps bucks from the Feds Indigenous Guardian Program for Nunavut conservation projects. Just a coincidence with the “Guardian” name? The lovely doing small, simple things such as recycling barrels from the land. So pay no attention to the first steps to not see the run towards the 30% land grab goal.
Though it’s in our face what is happening as told of about 6 million square kilometers of the Arctic land/water, a large part Nunavut being nailed down under WWF’s Nature conservation control.
As WWF let’s us know… Fulfill their commitment to UN’s safeguard and preserve 30% land/water/sea by 2030 (30×30).
All right before NTI, KIAs and QIA eyes. Across Nunavut (and around the world) the biggest land grab is taking place. Now with only 6 years left to complete by 2030 will the new colonization rapidly increase in speed and still be without a peep of concern? Why?
Protected areas… “Colonial – Fortress Conservation”.