Global Warming - Ice Boxes to Eskimoes

Inuits need cash for freezers in warming Arctic

Posted Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:48pm AEDT

Inuit communities need funds to adapt to climate change in the Arctic, including measures to build communal deep freezers to store game, an Inuit leader said on Friday.

The Inuit, the indigenous people of Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Russia, have traditionally hunted for Arctic species from seal to polar bear, whale to caribou.

The Inuit Circumpolar Council's (ICC) Violet Ford says she sees climate changes "on a daily basis".

Ms Ford, who was born and raised in the Inuit community of Makkovik, says more funds are needed for adaptation and response to climate change in the Arctic.

"That should also be going to the Inuit communities as a response to climate change," she said.

"We need infrastructure. We want community deep freezers if the hunting patterns change so much that we can only go hunting a few times a year."

'Disappearing' culture

ICC chairman James Stotts says his 78-year-old uncle fell through the ice and froze to death at a time of year when the ice normally would be thick and safe.

"Inuits have to find other ways to store their meat. Some of our villages are literally falling into the seas because of erosion," he said.

Mr Stotts said he hoped governments gathered for the United Nations' climate conference in Copenhagen would come up with a "real deal ... something that really will work".

ICC vice chairman, Aqqaluk Lynge, said that the ice cap is melting much faster than before, which would raise ocean levels, reduce winter ice and threaten the Inuit way of life.

"The hunters' area is very large ... they drive around on dog sledges, but for us the dog sledges are disappearing," he said.

"That part of the culture is disappearing. We are paying for the changes already in many ways."

-Reuters