Greenpeace an unlikely ally for Inuit
Jessica Davey-Quantick
Northern News Services
Monday, August 22, 2016
KANGIQTUGAAPIK/CLYDE RIVER
No one was more surprised that Clyde River is working with Greenpeace than Jerry Natanine, former mayor.
Jerry Natanine, former mayor of Clyde River, is one of the community members on board the Arctic Sunrise. - photos courtesy of Greenpeace Canada
Farrah Khan, an Arctic campaigner for Greenpeace Canada, says she hopes Greenpeace's voyage will help draw attention to the issues facing Clyde River. |
"I grew up hating Greenpeace. I never wanted to have anything to do with them, and I'm as surprised as anyone else it worked out this way," he said. But, when seismic blasting threatened the coastline, he extended an invitation.
The collaboration is part of a makeover started in 2014 when Greenpeace Canada's executive director apologized for the campaigns - especially those around the seal hunt - that devastated the North in decades past.
"We want to change the way we work, we want to make amends through our actions to be better allies with Inuit," said Farrah Khan, an Arctic campaigner for Greenpeace Canada. She's one of the activists on board the Arctic Sunrise.
The apology reflects a change in how Greenpeace Canada sees development in the North.
But many people on land argue that inviting in the oil industry is the only way to escape the infrastructure problems that plague the territory.
"At first we thought we were going to get rich off of it and somehow we're going to benefit in terms of money," said Natanine.
"In Clyde River we (have a) shortage of infrastructure. We don't have a hospital, our airport is nothing but gravel and when there's a fog the planes can't land, when there's a blizzard the planes cannot land. We need a bridge to cross the river but we don't have money for that. And water filtration system for drinking water for the community, all these things. The buildings that we use are run down, old government buildings. How are we going to replace these? And we thought the oil business could achieve that."
But he doesn't see fossil fuels as the way out.
"Now we know that the oil companies don't have us in mind when they want to drill for oil," Natanine said. "They don't care about us one bit. Tell me how many jobs they will create, who's going to work, how much money are they going to make, and what is the benefit to Inuit? I need a dollar figure."
The National Energy Board, in it's assessment of the seismic testing project, says that while it has no direct role in approving a benefit plan for Inuit in the area, MultiKlient Invest AS has committed to employing two Inuit observers and hiring community liaison officers in Pond Inlet, Clyde River, Qikiqtarjuaq and Iqaluit. Since the testing is no guarantee of future drilling, potential for future employment spinning out of the project is unclear.
Development is coming, and it's needed. The question is what kind of development. Greenpeace and the community members on the boat say the Inuit of Clyde River have a chance to be on the forefront of sustainable development, with far longer-reaching effects than the boom and bust oil cycle. The goal isn't to stop all development and freeze the Inuit in some sort of imagined primordial past. Instead, it's about developing in a new way that incorporates the traditional knowledge which has allowed the community to survive for hundreds of years.
"We think that oil is an energy that belongs to the 20th century. Every single report, and there are many at this point, from the international scientific community is telling us that we cannot burn more oil. And that the oil that lies beneath the Arctic sea floor as well as the oil that lies in the tar sands has to be left in the ground if we are not to surpass the two degrees Celsius increase in the global temperature," said Diego Creimer, communications officer with Greenpeace."The opportunity for renewables in the North are huge. The solar and wind potential is really great."
To prove that point, the Arctic Sunrise brought several solar panels to Clyde River. They'll be installed on the community hall.
"We're not trying to get out of diesel fuel just by solar panels. That's a start. And from that we're going to learn if we can power our community hall and how much saving it's going to create with the burning of fossil fuel, diesel especially. And from there we're going to see how effective it can be and what more we need to do to achieve our goal of not using fossil fuels," said Natanine.
