Study draws attention to chemicals in country food

MIRIAM HILL

A recent report shows that Inuit in Greenland and Canada face the greatest exposure to Arctic toxins, but at least one Inuit leader says it doesn’t mean people should stop eating country food.

On Oct. 1, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) released its report, Arctic Pollution 2002, and since then a number of organizations and individuals have voiced concern over the results.

The five-year study, conducted by scientists from across the Arctic, shows that exposure to toxic chemicals, such as mercury and PCBs, which can affect fetal and neonatal development, is linked mainly to eating marine species as part of a traditional diet.

Some species, mainly those at the upper end of the food chain, such as polar bears, whales, seals and some birds, carry high levels of these toxins in their body tissue. When consumed by humans, the toxins are passed on.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), said this is the second AMAP report to come out since 1997 and the message hasn’t changed.

“There’s ongoing research that will continue, but the benefits still outweigh the risks in terms of our country food and that’s the bottom line really,” she said.

Working with ITK

Watt-Cloutier said she is concerned about the report’s findings, especially what it means for Inuit making decisions about their diets and whether to breast feed their babies.

“Our communities are working directly with the Inuit Taparisat Kanatami (ITK), the national research group that continues to communicate what people should be on the lookout for and help them make the right choices for themselves in terms of ingesting our country food as well as the nursing issue,” she said.

The report also helps draw attention the state of the Arctic environment. “It’s absolutely helping raise awareness in the global world in terms of indicating how serious it is for us up here in the Arctic,” Watt-Cloutier said.

“So the world, yes, continues to understand better what these issues are for us so in these terms it is very helpful.”

It’s hard science such as the AMAP report that helps change international policy, she said, citing the last report’s impact at a meeting in Sweden, where the Stockholm Convention was borne, mandating the elimination of 12 of the most toxic chemicals in the environment.

Treaties and agreements like these that are the best way to reduce chemical toxins in traditional foods in the Arctic, the report says.

“During the next four years [ICC] has a lot of issues to deal with and we’ve been armed with the Kuujjuaq Declaration to deal with many, many issues but certainly environment is at the top of the list,” Watt-Cloutier said.

“I know for me that will certainly be one of my bigger mandates — to put the Inuit face on the map in terms of what is happening here in the Arctic environmentally.”

WWF conducts toxin study

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is calling on all governments, especially the United States and Russia to ratify the Stockholm Convention, as Canada already has.

Susan Sang, a scientist with the WWF, is working with people in Arviat, Coral Harbour and Pangnirtung to assess the health status of wildlife in relation to toxic chemicals.

Sang said this past year was spent consulting with various groups in North and the South, including local hunters and trappers organizations.

The WWF wanted to find out what issues people in the communities thought needed to be addressed. It has partnered with Trent University to conduct the more scientific parts of the project.

Three main species — Arctic char, seals and beluga — are being examined, both by observation and by tissue sampling.

“We are looking to see if there are changes in these species, particularly and if the hunters are observing any changes or are seeing any abnormal conditions that they can report,” Sang said. “They are also taking tissues and organs for chemical analysis.”

Since Canada’s ratification of the Stockholm Treaty, Sang said, levels of toxins in some wildlife tissues have been decreasing, but this project is to make sure that other toxins, and toxins from other parts of the world, don’t get to a hazardous level in the tissue of Arctic wildlife.