Media
Climate change conference seeks local input
CBC News, June 16, 2005
About 80 scientists from around the world are in Whitehorse this week, sharing their research on climate change and how changing weather patterns can change the world.
The scientists, from Argentina to China to Russia, are exploring the links between warmer weather, forest fires, landslides and even insects causing the permafrost to melt.
The conference, the fifth in a series of international scientific gatherings to focus on climate change, is learning how it affects the people of the North.
First Nations communities are already feeling the impact of change. "Out hunting polar bear, the ice is not thick like it used to be like 20 years ago," says John Max Kudlak of Paulatuk, a community of 280 in the northern N.W.T., 400 kilometres east of Inuvik.
"Now it's more open, it takes a long time to freeze... with the climate change it limits us as guides and outfitters to how far we can go now."
Charles Gruben of Tuktoyaktuk agrees. "Over the years you see a lot of erosion, shoreline erosion and even inland the lakes, there's land sliding into the lakes," he says. Gruben says the erosion around some lakes is so bad, they don't resemble the bodies of water on maps that were made back in the 1960s.
The scientists hope to learn more about how native peoples adapted to severe shifts in weather and landscapes in the past. Gruben predicts his community is facing an enormous change in the very near future. "To me I think it's a losing battle. Eventually they're going to have to move the town, probably by the next generation, that's how much land we're losing," he says.
The conference will eventually move from the lecture hall to a Yukon First Nation this weekend. The participants will be meeting with elders in Haines Junction, 100 kilometres west of Whitehorse, to hear about the First Nation's experience with climate change in the past, in order to plan for the drastic changes that are likely to come. They'll learn from people who live close to the land and have already experienced rapid changes in their landscapes.
"By looking backwards in time we are trying to provide ourselves with some lessons for what is coming up right now," says John Streicker, who's with the Whitehorse-based Northern Climate ExChange and one of the conference organizers. "We are going to make some stops and listen to some elders to try and gain some of that perspective," he says.
© 2005 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation