Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Mar 10/00) - A ground-breaking development in wildlife management occurred last Friday when the Inuvialuit-Inupiat Beaufort Sea Beluga Whale Agreement was signed.

The executive director of the Joint Secretariat of the Inuvialuit Renewable Resources Committees, Norm Snow, helped lay the groundwork for the treaty between the Inuvialuit of the Northwest Territories and Inupiat people of Alaska.

Snow said participants also arranged to take advantage of the presence of the four Alaskan representatives in Inuvik over the weekend to officially renew the seminal 1988 Inuvialuit-Inupiat Polar Bear Management Agreement in the Southern Beaufort Sea.

The signing of the beluga treaty took place at the Green Briar restaurant, where both hosts and visitors took turns speaking about the project and their success in reaching agreement.

"I'm glad when the Inupiat and Inuvialuit can come together," said Nellie Cournoyea, chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation.

"Even though what they're doing may seem small at the ground level, this is about people coming together before some international authority comes barrelling in and tells you how it should be done."

Joint Secretariat chair Bob Bell said the beluga treaty is very much based on the 1988 polar bear agreement and that while both agreements are rather informal in the context of international law, they nevertheless represent important pioneering efforts.

"The beluga agreement is a users' agreement between the people who harvest the beluga on both sides of the border," he said. "At some point there might be a government to government agreement, but the people who depend on the beluga are leading the charge on this thing and putting into place something that would be far more difficult and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to negotiate between the government of Canada and the government of the United States."

Charlie Brower, North Slope Borough wildlife management director, was the Inupiat witness to the treaty and agreed it was a "milestone" development, built on the polar bear success and one which may lead to others.

"When we were here in 1986 talking about the Porcupine caribou herd we came up with the idea that we should work out some kind of agreement to manage the polar bears, too, since we were sharing the same stock," he said, "and the next thing we knew we were talking about belugas."

Like Bell, Brower said although the agreements were initiated by the users, the various levels of government have assisted and blessed the project.

He added the health of the animal populations has resulted in little conflict between the users groups, and this may lead to further co-operation.

"We're already at the talking stage regarding the muskox that migrate between Alaska and Canada," he said. "It's wise to look to the future for other possible management agreements."

The beluga agreement itself calls for the establishment of an Inuvialuit and Inupiat beluga commission that will be responsible for, among other things, meeting regularly and exchanging information on stock numbers, health and hunting.

Sachs Harbour elder Andy Carpenter Sr. is a former member of the polar bear commission and said communication is the key.

"We had informal ways of communicating with the Alaskans before but never specific numbers and details," he said. "That's the benefit of the agreements; getting information to help make better decisions about the whales."