indigenous people

Oil and gas development will play a key role in Greenland’s future.

We had just stepped ashore in Qeqertat when the small boat approached the beach, dodging its way in between icebergs.

Sascha and Mette visit the village of Sassivik, Greenland to talk with the local hunters.

We decided to visit the community of Kullorsuaq this afternoon to speak to the population there about their experience with climate change.

Being a little ahead of schedule, the crew takes the opportunity to make a few useful, but enjoyable, stops.

Femke Koopmans from WWF-Netherlands joined the Arctic Programme’s Geoff York to learn from the international community the best ways to prevent conflict between bears and people.

Despite temperatures well below freezing, Cape Kozhevnikov is bustling. The Umky Patrol is hard at work, using tractors and snowmobiles to transport frozen walrus carcasses and pile them outside town.

Academic conferences such as this one are filled with experts. Experts in anthropology, law, sociology, education and several more disciplines. How do we know they’re expert? Because the vast majority have letters after their name that tell us so – there are more doctors here than in your average hospital (though I wouldn’t want these doctors performing surgery on me). But when it comes to telling the world about the Arctic, are these the right sort of experts?

In early April, WWF’s Bering and Arctic Sea program officer, Elisabeth Kruger, traveled to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service field office in the Arctic to assist with interpretation for our Moscow colleague, Natalia Illarionova.

In these blog posts, Elisabeth describes her experiences on the Arctic slope and the work that the FWS does to help us understand the Chukchi Sea polar bear population.

This year I had a unique opportunity while in town. PBI and Frontiers North Adventures premiered a new film by Zacharias Kunuk and Ian Mauro. The documentary was filmed in Inuktitut with English subtitles and is called Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change. Some of you may recognize Zach from his last award winning project, Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner). This new work is a documentary recording Inuit elder perspectives on climate change across the Nunavut region of the Canadian high arctic. Along with the discussions on observed changes witnessed by elders and their concerns about the future, the film highlights some fairly direct and sometimes angry views around polar bears, conservation efforts, and the scientists who study this animal.