Indigenous groups 'on front line of climate change'

Indigenous people from around the world are gathering this week for a conference on climate change – a subject they claim affects them disproportionately even though they share relatively little responsibility for it.

Patricia Cochran, chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, said the United Nations-affiliated conference in Anchorage, Alaska, intended to provide “a unified voice, to be able to have more influence over the political and other decisions that are being made that impact our communities”.

About 400 people from 80 nations were expected to attend the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change, where organisers will create a plan and demand that countries around the world include indigenous people as they respond to climate change.

Indigenous people who “have contributed the least to the global problem of climate change” were often “on the front lines” of the problem, said Ms Cochran, whose group was hosting the summit.

The council represents about 150,000 Inuit in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka in Russia.

Conference recommendations will be presented in December to the Conference of Parties at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen.

Organisers of the five-day summit said problems of climate change were threatening those who had lived on the same land for generations.

Stanley Tom, a conference delegate, said a river in his Alaskan home town of Newtok had been eroding the earth under homes and had turned the tiny village into an island, and that other Alaskan villages were also facing erosion and flooding.

“The global warming is really strong,” Mr Tom said. “The whole village is sinking right now.”

Summit co-sponsor Sam Johnston of Tokyo-based United Nations University said those living in Australia’s Torres Strait Islands had similar problems because of rising sea levels, while southern Australia was experiencing the worst drought on record.

He said the drought was in an area of the country where much of Australia’s fruit, vegetables and grains were grown, and it was “having a dramatic impact on everybody, including the indigenous people”.

Organisers say indigenous groups can offer ways to reduce the effects of climate change because they have centuries of experience when it comes to adapting to harsh environments.

Mr Johnston said Aborigines in northern Australia used traditional fire practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which has allowed them to sell €13m worth of carbon credits to industries.

“Their traditional knowledge is very important,” he said.