Gwich'in Council International

Old Crow, Mary Jane Moses photo

The Gwich'in Council International (GCI) was established as a non-profit organization in 1999 by the Gwich'in Tribal Council in Inuvik, NWT, to ensure all regions of the Gwich'in Nation in the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Alaska are represented at the Arctic Council, as well as to play an active and significant role in the development of policies that relate to the Circumpolar Arctic.

The founding members of GCI includes six Alaskan Gwich'in communities (Arctic Village, Chalkyitsik, Fort Yukon, Birtch, Circle and Venetie) two Gwich'in representative bodies in Canada — Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation representing Vuntut Gwitchin in Old Crow, Yukon, and Gwich'in Tribal Council representing four communities in the Beaufort Delta region in the Northwest Territories. In total, the Gwich'in Council International founding members represent approximately 9,000 indigenous peoples of Gwich'in descent. The GCI Secretariat rotates between the Gwich'in Tribal Council in Inuvik, NWT and the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon.

GCI Newsletter

The Gwich'in Council International newsletter is now available. This provides a summary of events over the past year and of activities undertaken by GCI. You can download the newsletter in PDF format here.

The Circle

Who are the people living in the Arctic? How are their lives influenced by the dramatic changes occurring in the region, as temperatures reach record high levels, the sea ice is melting with an alarming speed, and countries and companies compete for access to the wealth of arctic resources? How do people of the North cope with and adapt to these changes, and what is the role of traditional knowledge in these processes today? Is it possible to find a way forward to ensure a balance between resource exploitation on the one hand, and conservation of the Arctic’s unique and vulnerable natural values on the other? How do the arctic peoples themselves contribute to these processes?

These are some of the questions we asked in this issue of The Circle, which focuses on arctic peoples, or human response to arctic change; it is available from the WWF site here.

As always, we have asked for contributions from some of the key people involved in analyzing and trying to understand these issues. But most importantly, we have invited people who live in the Arctic to share their perspectives; people from a variety of countries, backgrounds, cultures and professions – from the student/fisherman in Norway to Indigenous leaders and the Premier of Greenland.

WWF International Arctic Programme
Oslo, Sweden

Report from the Arctic Energy Summit,
Anchorage, Alaska

The overarching goal of the Arctic Energy Summit in Anchorage, Alaska was to create a forum to engage in a dialogue on energy development in the Arctic. The Summit brought together the people of the Arctic to discuss, share and create a balanced approach toward sustainable extractive, renewable and rural power with the vision of creating energy wealth while eliminating energy poverty.

To assist in the achievement of this goal, Arctic energy was examined as comprising two energy sources, extractive and renewable and two methods of deployment, external and internal. Extractive sources - oil, gas, coal, natural gas from coal seams, methane hydrates - all have an external component, in which the resource is used outside or external to its source, typically used for the creation of wealth as well as having an internal deployment for use by the people of the north. Likewise, renewable energy sources - wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass - all can be deployed within, as well as external to, the Arctic.

The Report on the Arctic Energy Summit is available on this link in pdf format.

Arctic Report Card 2009 is released

The Arctic Report Card is a timely source for clear, authoritative, and concise environmental information based on input from over 70 international scientists. The research and compilation was sponsored by the Arctic Council.

Here are key findings for 2009:

Warming of the Arctic continues to be widespread, and in some cases, dramatic.

Linkages between air, land, sea, and biology are evident. For example, loss of sea ice is allowing more heat to be stored in the Arctic Ocean, which, in turn, is modifying the large scale atmospheric circulation and heat budget

Although the summer sea ice minimum in 2009 was not as low as 2007 or 2008, there is continued loss of older sea ice compared to five years ago, a indication of a major climate change in the Arctic High Arctic species, such as walrus, polar bears, and Norwegian fisheries, are impacted by continuing loss of sea ice.

Greenland shows continued ice sheet loss.

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Funding for this web site was provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs Canada. Updated 2010.03.16.