ARCTIC: Apology to Indigenous Communities & more – 19th Nov 2024

Góðan daginn from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 19th of November twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

In a moment sure to reverberate around Indigenous communities worldwide, on Tuesday the 12th the Norwegian parliament issued an official apology to the Sami, Forest Finns, and Kvens communities in Norway for the government’s centuries of forced assimilation policies. The apology came after a report was published by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission last year, detailing the harmful extent of Norway’s history of cultural erasure among the country’s Indigenous population.

The whole parliament backed the apology, except for the right-wing Progress party. Still, the government promised annual reports on the work it is doing for Indigenous people and national minorities.

The Canadian Arctic is undergoing big changes, too. As reported by news agency Arctic Today on Friday the 15th, the Canadian government reacted to the news of the incoming US President Trump by creating a new Arctic policy to be released by the end of the year. While the details of the new policy are not yet publicly available, Canada’s government has promised to collaborate with Inuit leaders in order to create a vision for the Arctic which ensures sovereignty and security in the face of geopolitical shifts, while respecting the priorities of its Indigenous people.

We’ll make sure to provide updates on Canada’s new vision for the Arctic in the future.

On that note about Canada, Indigenous communities are already receiving significant government support, which will significantly protect their lands. On Thursday the 14th, over twenty Indigenous governments from the North Western Territories signed a deal with the federal government worth over $250 million US dollars. The project intends to turn almost twenty percent of the region into newly protected areas over the next decade while sustaining the cultures and economies of Indigenous communities across Canada’s Arctic.

Similarly, the US is joining in the economic support for its Arctic Native people. On Thursday the 14th, the US Department of Commerce announced 1 million dollars of funding for seven multi-year projects supporting climate resilience and food security in remote Alaska communities. The funding will be going to projects that hope to ensure that as the Alaskan climate changes, remote communities in the state have the tools to adapt and survive in the long term.

To learn more about the projects being supported by this funding and how they will be helping Alaska Native Communities, take a look at the link in the show notes.

Still in the US, the outgoing Biden administration is making lots of impactful decisions in the Arctic, but not all are supported by Indigenous people. On Thursday the 14th, the US Department of the Interior revealed that it is negotiating with native corporations to enact a land trade that would allow a road to be built through Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The road would connect the communities of Cold Bay and King Cove at the end of the Alaska Peninsula, allowing King Cove to be accessed more safely and reliably.

While the Indigenous residents of King Cove support the deal, other native leaders strongly oppose the project. On the 14th, the tribal government for that Yup’ik community released a statement saying the project’s negative environmental impact will put all Alaskan tribes at risk.

The US is making deals with other Arctic nations as well. On Wednesday the 13th, American, Canadian and Finnish officials gathered to commit to the joint development, construction and maintenance of polar icebreakers with the signing of the Icebreaker Collaborative Effort Pact in Washington. Alejandro Mayorkas, The US Department of Homeland Security Secretary, spoke at the pact signing, saying that since Russia and China are collaborating on the creation of a huge new icebreaker fleet, the US and its allies need to build their own icebreakers to keep the polar regions peaceful and prosperous for all.

Finland might be committing to building ships, but its environmental protection efforts are under scrutiny. Every Arctic nation is currently present at the COP29 Climate Change Conference, hoping to get support for their climate needs. Alexander Stubb, the Finnish President, spoke at the conference's opening ceremony on Tuesday the 12th where he promised that his government would provide additional climate funding for poorer countries.

However, Finnish news agency YLE responded to this speech, noting that even though the government has spent years promising lofty climate protection investment, it actually cut its climate budget by forty percent in the last year and argued that any additional funding would merely be a reinstatement of the previously cut funding.

A new report by the World Wildlife Fund Arctic Program released on Monday the 11th highlighted the need for global environmental action. Despite a six percent drop in Arctic fossil fuel production in twenty twenty-three, methane emissions spiked, fueling significant Arctic warming. The report criticizes Norway, the US, and Russia for planning new Arctic oil and gas projects, projecting rising emissions until twenty forty. It urges Arctic nations to set concrete goals for reducing production and demands immediate emission cuts from Arctic companies.

Speaking of failing on environmental protections, on Tuesday the 12th, the Kremlin-linked information agency Interfax reported that the Russian government intends to withdraw from the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program. The program, initiated in two thousand three, made Norway, the European Union and the United States provide Russia with billions of dollars of assistance to clean up nuclear fuel and radioactive waste in the Murmansk region in northern Russia.

This agreement has kept nuclear pollution from entering the Arctic Ocean for decades, but Russia’s desire to end all cooperation with the US and EU means that nuclear safety in the Arctic is now in serious jeopardy.

Some projects being canceled are good news, though. On Friday the 15th, Greenland’s government announced that Denmark will stop using culturally inappropriate tests in parenting competence studies for Greenlandic families. Previously, tests were in the Danish language rather than Greenlandic, and parental competency was judged on westernized standards. For example, subsistence hunting is crucial to Greenlandic cultural and daily life, but is considered a parental failing in Denmark. This often led to forced placements of Greenlandic children into Danish families, severing cultural ties.

Greenland’s government praised Denmark for addressing these concerns and implementing measures to protect Greenlandic parents’ rights.

Animals in the Arctic need some relief. On Friday the 15th, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority confirmed that there is a major outbreak of bird flu in north Norway. Almost 200 dead seagulls have been spotted in the Kvænangen and Skjervøy regions, many of which had been eaten by crows and rats. The Veterinary Institute says this is the contagious H5N5 variant and it has now been detected in domestic birds for the first time. Since they expect the infection to spread, they have asked members of the public who find a dead bird in northern Norway to stay clear and report the bird to the authorities.

Some corruption allegations have rocked the Parliament in Iceland last week. On Monday the 11th, secret recordings of Jón Gunnarsson, an Independence Party MP, were leaked to the national press. These recordings allege that Gunnarsson has colluded with Bjarni Benediktsson, the Icelandic Prime Minister, to secure a position in the Icelandic government and get whaling reinstated in the long term.

On Friday the 15th, Pirate Party MP Þórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir called for an investigation into Gunnarsson’s role in the government and her motion was passed with majority support in Parliament. With a national election less than two weeks away, this explosive story may have long-lasting ramifications in Iceland.

Finally, do you want to contribute to how the world views the Arctic? On Wednesday the 13th, the Arctic Economic Council launched a competition inviting people worldwide to contribute to a book called The Arctic Encyclopedia. The competition has numerous categories including photography and poetry. Entries close on the 16th of December, and the winners will have their art added to a book that will define the Arctic. If you’re interested in entering, check out the link in the show notes.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

Before we leave, did you know that if you are listening to us on Spotify you can leave comments or questions in the episode? There's a comment box right there. The comments are private by default, and we won’t publish them. If you want us to get back to you, share your email so we can contact you back! We'd love to hear from you! Put something in there, go crazy

Adjo