If you're reading this on a Sunday and you're not new to the newsletter, then you'll recognize the late-hour of which I'm sending out my latest dispatch. I've been writing fresh from the field from, of all things, a two-day summit that had been on my radar for weeks though I wasn't sure I would
attend. What a dumb move that would have been.
The Arctic Encounter Symposium returned to the conference circuit after a two-year hiatus from the Covid-19 pandemic. And let's just say that its comeback couldn't have come at a more compelling time. Since 2020, from when the last symposium was
held, the warming of the Arctic has only intensified at a rate that one Harvard scientist in attendance said is now four times faster than anywhere else on the planet.
And yes, the elephant in the room was Russia's atrocious invasion of Ukraine. (The nation's ambassador reportedly withdrew his invitation a week before the conflict broke out.)
Inuit rights advocate Dalee Sambo Dorough was among the star-studded list of invited guests who took time to speak with me after her panel - the very last one of a very loaded symposium. Here's an excerpt of
what we discussed with edits for clarity:
JENNI:
You know, Dalee - a lot of people aren't aware of the long-held Indigenous invisibility that has existed in these kind of climate talks, something you know firsthand in your role on the recently established UN working group for Indigenous Peoples and climate change [the LCIPP]. And now that there is increasing inclusion when before there was none, where are you on the spectrum of emotion when it comes to addressing the chain of dramatic events happening to your Inuit homelands?
DALEE:
I think worrisome; it's been constant worry.
Like I said, on stage, the Inuit Circumpolar Council emerged out of the Cold War and so many of us from my generation are acutely aware of the impacts in the region. This is now bringing them all back into the entire fold addressing all of our years of dialogue and all of our relations.
So I think worrisome is an accurate term to apply, yet at the same time, we have seen conflict for decades, for centuries, you know,
JENNI:
It's not new.
DALEE:
Exactly.
Indigenous Peoples across the globe have seen conflict and its relative to the context of everything discussed here about the assault on Ukraine.
But I still remain optimistic about the future. It's really difficult to say that in the face of something as overwhelming as the climate crisis, but at the same time, we are still here and we still have
much to contribute. And I think that we cannot, we cannot pause anything in terms of our advocacy on behalf of our people. Basically we're not going to turn the volume down, I guess.
JENNI:
On that note, you talk about our people representing, you know, a greater community of ourselves, but we also can't ignore our relatives like the whales and the sea mammals of these impacted marine ecosystems.
And there's this huge conversation happening here at this conference centered around economic development in the Arctic - mainly through LNG tankers moving through these opening waterways really for the first time. We're already seeing new impacts of this increased traffic when it comes to pollution, not only with marine debris, but also now noise pollution taking its toll on marine
mammals.
How do we make these relatives part of the conversation in a way that can be taken seriously?
