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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Communicating Climate Change
However, in so far as the current global climate change discourse favors Western-based scientifically
driven evidence, the complexity of environmental knowledge has demanded inclusion of
contextualized knowledge. In the Arctic specifically, research regarding environmental change is
increasingly likely to result from the collaboration of Western scientists and local communities. In
aggregate, this suggests that Arctic indigenous peoples are attaining a higher degree of recognition as
primary producers of environmental knowledge.
Relevant in many different respects is the involvement of Arctic indigenous peoples as political
actors at the international, national, regional and sub-regional level. For example, since the founding
of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (now Council [ICC]) in 1977, the ICC is considered as an
influential political voice in regional, national and international fora. In this regard, Jessica Shadian
(2006: 250) aptly states, ―the ICC has grown not only into a powerful political actor in Arctic
governance but has further acquired the legitimacy to help determine the very definition of the
region as a whole.‖ From inception, the ICC linked the environment with indigenous rights, stating
that ―international and national policies and practices should give due consideration to protection
for the Arctic and subarctic environment and to the preservation and evolution of Inuit culture and
societies‖ (
Inuit Circumpolar Council
: Charter). Equally relevant are the numerous other entities that
Inuit have formed over the past decades. For example, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) represent the
interests of Canada‘s Inuit at the federal level while the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission
represent the specific interests of whalers. Moreover, the self-governing territory of Nunavut,
Canada came into existence in 1999 and Greenland moved closer to independence from Denmark
with the Self Government Act in 2008.
At the same time, a nascent but resolute community of indigenous media makers have adopted the
tools of Web 2.0 to produce, control and transmit autobiographical materials in a culturally authentic
manner (Wachowich, 2010). Video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Inuit-owned Isuma.tv
provide a medium through which the narrator can engage with the broader society without the
mediation of outside institutions or governments. Yoshai Benkler, a renowned expert in the
networked public sphere, characterizes Web 2.0 as essential to decentralized collaboration and
transformative to democracy. Indeed, this networked public sphere is an egalitarian mode of
communications, creating social ties that potentially reach a ―salience that drives political process
directly‖ (Benkler, 2000: 213). Benkler‘s insight is illustrated by the 2011 launch of the interactive
web portal Digital Indigenous Democracy, hosted by Isuma.tv. With the use of live call-in shows
and Skype, Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk created the portal to ―promote region-wide
community discussion in Inuktitut on the Baffinland development.‖ Together with human rights
lawyer Lloyd Lipsett, Kunuk urged the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) and Baffinland Mary
River Iron Mines Corporation
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―to use 21
st
century media to increase Inuktitut information and
participation at the community level, to meet today‘s constitutional and human rights standards of
informed consultation and consent.‖ At the suggestion of Kunuk and Lipsett the NIRB
incorporated new media technology to ―inform, consult and connect Inuit communities in its Final
Hearing Report on Baffinland‘s Mary River Project‖ (
Isuma Productions
, 2012).
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