>From Nov/Dec 1993 WWF News (News Desk section): Inuit
Initiative
By Lesa Griffith
A landmark proposal by the Inuit people of Clyde River, on
Canada's Baffin Island, to create a bowhead whale sanctuary is
on the verge of becoming a reality.
Ten years ago, local hunter Apak Qaqqasiq told
WWF-sponsored biologist Kerry Finley something the Inuit have
known for centuries: every year bowheads gather in uninhabited
Isabella Bay, a traditional Inuit hunting ground.
Bowheads are one of the world's most threatened whales and
Finley immediately began a four-year study of the previously
unknown feeding grounds, working closely with the Inuit.
Something clicked: in 1987, the indigenous Clyde River
Hunters and Trappers Association (HTA) wrote to various
government agencies and WWF asking for advice on whale
protection. Long a whaling people, the Inuit want to ban the
practice temporarily to allow the bowhead population to
recover.
"This was a rare and timely invitation," says Arlin
Hackman, director of WWF-Canada's Endangered Spaces campaign.
"The Inuit's initiative is a first in Canada. And because Clyde
River is not yet being exploited, for once we weren't locked
into a natural resource conflict. It's proactive conservation."
Hackman helped HTA develop conservation goals and
management policies for Isabella Bay. HTA presented its whale
sanctuary and biosphere reserve proposal to the government in
February 1990 and the fisheries minister approved a steering
committee on the issue four months later.
At the same time, the Inuit, hard hit by the late 1970s
European boycott on seal products, raised concerns about their
future hunting and access rights in the proposed sanctuary.
Most of Clyde River's 500 Inuit survive off welfare and the
land.
Reassured that they would retain traditional hunting
rights, last spring the Inuit voted to renew sanctuary support.
With the proposal back on track, Hackman hopes "the sanctuary
will become legal within the next year".
"To work, the sanctuary must give local people a sense of
self-determination and some jobs through participation and
management roles," he adds.
In August, WWF-Canada issued "Protected Areas and
Aboriginal Interests in Canada". The paper is part of
WWF-Canada's Endangered Spaces Campaign, which aims to
establish a network of protected areas, representing the
country's different habitats, by the year 2000.
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