Opportunities for research, enterprise, and exploration in the Arctic are expanding as climate change renders the northernmost reaches of the globe more accessible – and visible – than ever before. Often overlooked, however, are the people who actually live there. Four million people make their home in the resource-rich Arctic, where developers and policymakers are staking growing claims. [Video Below]

On July 29, the Wilson Center’s Polar Initiative, Canada Institute, and Environmental Change and Security Program hosted a program on human security and development in the Arctic. Anthony Speca, managing principal of Polar Aspect in Iqaluit (Nunavut); Craig L. Fleener, Arctic policy advisor for Governor Bill Walker of Alaska; and Anita Parlow, former advisor to the Harvard-MIT Arctic Fisheries Project, related the Nunavut experience in Canada to that of Alaska.

Paraguay in Canada

The Canadian federal government is not fulfilling its responsibility to Nunavummiut, which is the name given to the people inhabiting the territory of Nunavut, said Speca. The numbers are staggering: 35,000 people, 85 percent of whom are Inuit, inhabit a territory more vast than Alaska and encompassing a fifth of Canada’s total landmass.

Resources and qualified labor in Nunavut are scarce, due in part to the isolation of communities. There are few roads and places to land airplanes with supplies and as a result major logistical obstacles to delivering goods necessary to sustain proper health.

As much as a third of Nunavut’s population does not have secure supplies of food, and life expectancy is similar to that of Palestine or Paraguay. Power cuts are common in some places and Nunavummiut are frequently cautioned to boil their tap water.

But Canada’s claim to Arctic sovereignty depends on providing for the wellbeing of the Northern peoples, said Speca.

Residents of Nunavut are citizens of Canada and deserve public services comparable to those provided to all Canadians. Herein lies the problem: The federal government allocates a block grant to Nunavut that is more based on what the federal government is willing to spend than the territory’s actual needs. If Nunavut is ever going to achieve the level of development it deserves, the federal government must allocate more funds and deliver better public services, said Speca.

The Arctic is an expensive place to live and work, and places like Nunavut will always depend on federal support. There are opportunities for economic growth, said Speca, led by the lucrative mining, construction, and fishing industries, but these avenues require federal support to establish the infrastructure of an integrated northern economy.

Expanding Adaptation Options

Lightless tracts of tundra seized with winter’s brutal grip, summer months of midnight sun; Craig Fleener, Alaska’s Arctic policy advisor, described the Alaskan experience in romantic terms. But like Nunavut, many of the decisions about the United States’ 49^th state are made in distant places by individuals far removed from the Arctic way of life.

“Government overreach” on the federal and state levels, Fleener said, is threatening local people’s ability to adapt to a changing Arctic. For example, hunting bans legislated by the State of Alaska are a major issue in a subsistence economy. In much of Alaska there are few grocery stores and residents rely on the resources around them to survive. By setting specific seasons during which people can hunt, however, the state limits possible responses to changes in the environment. What if caribou arrive a week before their scheduled hunting season? If rural Alaskans decide they do not want to starve, they must break the law, Fleener said.

He advocated for more flexibility across the entire spectrum of legislation, not just in the areas of hunting and fishing regulations. Receding sea ice means that coastal permafrost is less protected, causing soil erosion to accelerate. Most communities in northern Alaska are coastal, and some residents have already been forced to relocate buildings and even entire villages as the soil becomes unstable. Current land ownership rules, however, make it difficult for residents to simply pack up and move as they might have done in the past. More than two-thirds of the state is owned by the federal government.

Moreover, government housing infrastructure favors sedentary communities, and there are obvious logistical difficulties involved in moving a house built on a foundation in a region where there are few roads and permafrost melt is roiling the ground. Coastal inhabitants – and rural Alaskans in general – must be allowed to adapt to the changing landscape around them if they are going to survive, Fleener said. More decisions concerning Alaskans should be up to Alaskans, he emphasized.

Fleener argued that renewable energy innovation will help diversify the Alaskan economy away from oil. With the consumer price of energy remaining high in many rural areas, Alaska has an incentive to become a leader in renewable energy resources and expertise. The current lack of traditional energy infrastructure makes renewable energy an ideal means by which communities can generate stably priced, environmentally responsible energy through abundant wind, river, and wave resources.

Alaska is a beautiful place, Fleener said, but keeping it that way will require a balance between innovative resource development and environmental stewardship.

“We Have to Listen to the People”

The Arctic is a dynamic system with many moving parts. Not all Northerners agree about how to proceed with economic development in the Arctic, but there is consensus about preserving their power of choice.

Speca urged the Canadian federal government to think of its Arctic territory as an integral part of the country, from both an economic and cultural standpoint, and not just as remote national space.

“We have to listen to the people in the Arctic – how they want their development to happen,” he said. “We have to stop putting obstacles in their way.”

Fleener’s vision of Alaska includes less federal oversight and improved partnerships between state government and residents, both rural and urban. In Alaska, as in Nunavut, the growth of industry cannot proceed without input from local inhabitants.

Event Resources:

• Friday Podcast With Anthony Speca
• Photo Gallery
• Video