Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

TALOYOAK (Sep 20/99) - When Taloyoak's Rhoda Nanook was a girl she thought the world was a wonderful place.

Now, at 51 years old, she knows many toxic chemicals foul the environment.

"I used to think the world was wonderful and nothing harmful would ever come to it," she said from her workplace at the Inuit Broadcasting Corp.

"But nowadays all we seem to hear is bad news about the food chain and I suppose my concerns are pretty much like other people's."

Nanook said she believes chemicals may be responsible for harming plant life as well as animal life.

"I like looking at nature and taking walks and I've noticed in certain areas that plants are not growing or are just dark brown or reddish and not blooming like they used to," she said.

As Nanook discusses symptoms of increased toxins in the environment, representatives of more than 100 countries are meeting at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland to negotiate a legally binding convention for persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

Sheila Watt-Eve, who is president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference of Canada and is at the meeting, told delegates last week that concentrations of certain POPs in Inuit women's blood and breast milk are five to 10 times higher than for women in southern Canada.

"Mothers in the Arctic should not have to worry about contaminants in the life-giving milk they feed their infants," she said.

"Nor should mothers in the south depend on these same chemicals to protect their children from vector born diseases."

Nanook said though she breast fed her youngest child 23 years ago, she has heard about some concerns with what is widely seen as the healthiest way to feed a baby.

Aside from toxins in breast milk, Nanook said an environmental issue that hits her closer to home is the amount of plastic bags that people litter around Water Lake near Taloyoak.

"I walk around it and I noticed there were a lot of plastic bags. I mentioned it to my husband, David, who is a councillor and he brought it up at council so I think something might be done about it."