Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (June 24/02) - A community-based narwhal management pilot project has been given a new lease on life.

Ben Kovic, chair of the Nunavut Wild-life Management Board, said earlier this month that Fisheries Minister Robert Thibault has accepted a decision to extend the project for another year, but with conditions.

The board, Nunavut Tunngavik and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans worked together to come up with the plan.

"In Rankin Inlet (at a recent board meeting), the board put in place an upper limit, sort of a quota," said Kovic.

Specifically, the decision means there will be a cap on the number of narwhals that hunters in participating communities can harvest.

The decision affects Pond Inlet, Repulse Bay, Qikiqtarjuaq, Kugaaruk and Arctic Bay.

Kovic would not release the quota because he said the communities had not yet been informed.

Community-based management of narwhal first came about in 1997 when a group of interested parties formed the Narwhal Working Group. They looked at the quotas imposed by DFO in hopes of replacing them with a non-quota system to be overseen by community hunters and trappers associations.

The board approved the format and it was forwarded to the fisheries minister for approval. Communities harvesting the most narwhals then had the opportunity to pass bylaws and regulations within their HTAs.

Those bylaws became the community-based regulations for governing the annual hunts.

While the program met with many successes in the last three years, Kovic said the minister was concerned about over-harvesting.

"The minister made it clear he is concerned and we accept his concerns," said Kovic.

During the current hunting season, Kovic said a review of the previous three years will take place, giving the partners time to make recommendations.

The NWMB, regional wildlife organizations, hunters and trappers associations, NTI and DFO will participate in the review. Kovic said it will begin late summer or early fall.