Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Feb 18/02) - Unusual species, eroding river banks, and a treeline that keeps moving north -- those were just some of the observations brought up at a workshop about climate change held recently in Inuvik.

Twenty local elders took part in the session. The workshop was organized by the national Inuit organization, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development.

They want to collect information about how climate change is affecting people who live on the land.

"Observations from people who are out on the land all the time can really offer a lot to fine-tune our understanding of climate change," said Scot Nickels, ITK's manager of environment in Ottawa.

"There's a lot of scientific information out there about climate change, but almost all of it concerns the environment and wildlife. None of it goes that step further and includes the people who live on the land."

An example of such information is how changing ice conditions and unpredictable weather have caused people to change the way they travel, Nickels said.

In summary, Richard Binder, chair of the Inuvik Hunters and Trappers Committee, said people have long been observing changes associated with climate change.

Ice on water bodies is about half as thick as it once was, and tall willows are growing in areas where only small shrubs were before. "Around our camps, you cut down the willows and they're growing faster and getting thicker than before," Binder said.

The Inuvik region still hasn't had a big winter storm of the severity normally associated with winters here. And Binder said sightings of southern species, such as a turkey vulture seen last summer in Aklavik, have become more common.

Similar workshops were held the week prior in Tuktoyaktuk and Aklavik. The information is going into a report that will be submitted to local organizations and those further afield, such as the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. That group was instrumental in bringing about the 2001 United Nations convention on persistent organic pollutants, Nickels said. "Our goal is to take it to the international forum and put a human face on climate change issues."

The draft report is scheduled to be available by early March and the final version is planned for later that month.

Nickels said he hopes to continue gathering local knowledge on climate change next year in Paulatuk, Holman and Sachs Harbour.