NNSL (Dec 08/97) - The man who spearheaded the campaign to preserve the qimmiq, the indigenous Canadian eskimo dog, in the 1970s, is now leading the campaign to preserve the North's endangered spaces.

Bill Carpenter, who came north in 1971 as a wildlife biologist, brought the first resident veterinarians to the North and spent most of the last six years as environmental director for the Metis Nation, has been named regional co-ordinator for the World Wildlife Fund's Endangered Spaces program.

For the next three years, Carpenter will help identify and develop new conservation areas in partnership with communities, aboriginal organizations, business and environmental groups and the territorial government, which is currently drafting its own Protected Areas Strategy.

While the government sweats the heavy bureaucratic details of terms of reference and allowable uses, Carpenter's role will be to approach it from the grassroots end.

"My job will be to take it to the community level," Carpenter said in an interview late last week.

Monte Hummel, president of the Canadian WWF chapter, said having someone with Carpenter's credibility heading the program will make it easier to get Northerners to buy into it.

"With Carpenter, a respected Northern resident known for his hard work, commitment and deliverables, we are confident that significant community advances will be made."

Over the next three years, various areas of land in the NWT will be identified as worthy of federal protection. The WWF, which has been working with governments across the country to have areas declared Endangered Spaces by the year 2000, wants to select sites that are environmentally important and permanent.

Within those sites, industrial activity would be prohibited, although small-scale traditional hunting, trapping and lumber harvesting would be allowed.

With five million members across the world, the WWF is the largest international conservation group, and its solid middle-of-the-road image allows it to garner support that more extreme organizations like Greenpeace cannot.

"I, for one, as a Northerner, would not be working for an organization such as (Greenpeace)," Carpenter stated.

"We are not an animal-rights group, we are not an extremist group. The WWF is dedicated to the preservation of all forms of life on earth, including humans."

The WWF is currently searching for someone who will co-ordinate a similar effort in Nunavut.