Decision Needs in High-Arctic Villages
Over the past decade, the indigenous population in the
Canadian Arctic has negotiated significantly greater powers of self-governance,
land and mineral rights. The government of Nunavut was created in 1999, and today it is
a growing society—developing its economy while nurturing traditional Inuit
cultural activities. The government is stressing development in key sectors
that include mining, fisheries and tourism. Traditional hunting and fishing
activities are an important part of the economy.
Scientists expect that the Arctic
will feel the impacts of climate change more severely than most other parts of
the world. This will have profound effects on Nunavut development. Melting of permafrost
will lead to less ground stability and change in transport patterns. Warmer
temperature might increase vegetation, but it will also mean melting sea ice
and more parasites and diseases, resulting in biodiversity loss and species
migration.
This directly threatens the sustainability of traditional
activities, which are tied strongly to the land. In addition, Nunavut economic development plans are
potentially vulnerable to other global changes such as international markets,
sovereignty claims and long-range pollution transport. The Nunavut government is thus attempting to
plan for a sustainable future in a multi-stress
environment where climate is often a distant concern that rarely influences
near term decisions.
Our aim is to collaborate with Nunavut communities to develop methods for
more sustainable development strategies that incorporate the socio-economic
impacts of climate change. Our research groups is
currently working on two projects:
Strategic Planning and Community
Development
Researchers: Michelle Boyle, Hadi Dowlatabadi, Sustainable Development Research Institute, University of British Columbia
As part of Nunavut’s
economic development, the government encourages communities to create medium to
long-term development plans. These plans, which often have a 10-year time
horizon with a review and adjustment cycle every three years, are initiated and
funded by the communities. The process typically begins with community
engagement where long-term goals are defined and discussed, and strategies and
milestones towards achieving those goals are mapped out. At the periodic
reviews, the community measures progress towards the
milestones, and evaluates the validity of the goals. They use these
development plans to make a stronger case for government funding of their
projects.
Since September 2004, our research team has forged working
relationships with three communities in the arctic that are at different stages
of plan development, revision and submission. The three communities—Cambridge Bay,
Baker Lake and Pond Inlet—are located in
different planning regions. They all have populations of 1500-1800 people, of
which more than three-quarters are of Inuit heritage. They face planning
challenges for pending large-scale mining projects, building local capacity and
maintaining cultural lifestyles.
So far, our studies of Nunavut economic policy documents and
interviews with local development officers have shown us that these communities
don’t give climate concerns special priority over other issues. We are trying
to understand how climate change will affect the communities, and how response
to the effects of climate change may be introduced into the Nunavut economic development planning
process.
By getting involved in the community development processes
in these three areas, we hope to develop planning tools that they can use to
assess what parts of the plans are vulnerable to regional and global climate
changes; assess the socioeconomic impacts of resource activities such as mining
an fisheries; determine what to monitor in order to learn when development
plans are threatened by climate changes; and generate possible ways to respond,
set priorities, and decide between various options. Our goal is to create tools
that complement the current process, are beneficial to the community, focus on
their goals, and, most importantly, can be easily used to aid development
decisions.
Biodiesel as an
alternative fuel in the High-Arctic
Researchers: Adam Levine, Hadi Dowlatabadi, Sustainable Development Research Institute, University of British Columbia
The cost of transporting diesel fuel to operate machines in
the arctic region is very high, typically 2-4 times world market prices. In Nunavut, diesel fuel
purchases count for nearly 20 percent of the GDP. Replacing all or part of this
with biodiesel fuel extracted from local resources
would not only reduce these purchases, it would also provide a cleaner fuel
alternative.
Traditional hunting and fishing activities in Nunavut offer an ideal
source for this biodiesel—oils from fish and sea
mammals. Biodiesel obtained from these sources could
replace half of the current GDP purchases, stemming the flow of money to
imported energy payments, at the same time revitalizing culturally relevant
activities, stimulating the economy by creating jobs for hunters and fishermen.
It will also be economical because these oils are co-products of other
important harvest such as pelts and food.
The Alaska Energy Authority and the U.S. Department of
Energy have tested biodiesel from fish oil
successfully in the past through a joint effort. Our preliminary estimations
have shown that this approach is economical at the scale of larger communities
in Nunavut
and permits a sustainable marine harvest. We plan to assess projects in Nunavut and Newfoundland,
testing the sensitivity of biodiesel production to
various climate change processes in the arctic. At the same time, we want to
make sure that this technology doesn’t provide the incentive to over-harvest.
Other than the technical problem, the success of this
project depends on the social acceptance of the idea. Because of traditional
beliefs, some Inuit peoples may believe that treatment of animals for this
purpose is unacceptable. We hope to get Nunavut
communities involved as we try to weigh the biodiesel
option in the challenging balance between living modern lifestyles and
retaining cultural values.