Inuit communities connect to conserve

Joshua Ostroff

Talking to neighbours in person has always been the best way to learn and find common ground. But while just as true for neighbouring communities, it’s much harder when it’s 25 Nunavut communities spread across a couple million square kilometres.

A close-up of a snowfield with a small town on the distant horizon
The Kitikmeot community of Gjoa Haven in northwestern Nunavut © Emina Ida / WWF-Canada

Take Taloyoak, on the northern tip of Canada’s mainland, where the local hunters and trappers group Taloyoak Umaruliririgut Association (TUA) has been working to establish the nearly 90,000-square-kilometre Aqviqtuuq Inuit Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) with an associated conservation-based economy that provides an alternative to resource extraction.

This story starts but does not end there, because TUA wants to support similar conservation efforts by their fellow Nunavummiut — and we want to support all of them. The best way to do so is by facilitating knowledge-sharing between far-flung neighbours in a territory where travel can be prohibitively expensive.

Group of people in a meeting room in the Nunavut community of Gjoa Haven
Meeting with Gjoa Haven Hunters and Trappers Association to discuss the potential of the Aqviqtuuq IPCA. © Emina Ida / WWF-Canada

So, we kicked off a cross-community project with funding from the WWF Global Arctic Programme’s Arctic Biodiversity Initiative and technical and administrative support from WWF-Canada staff.

First, we travelled with TUA’s Jimmy Ullikatalik and Lena Neeveacheak in 2023 for Inuktitut-language meetings and workshops in their fellow Eastern Kitikmeot region communities, Gjoa Haven and Kugaaruk. Known as Netsilikmiut, the people of the ringed seal, Inuit in this region share deep family ties and a mutual desire to collaborate on resources and opportunities.

Then last winter, we hosted a knowledge exchange summit in Iqaluit bringing together Inuit leaders from seven communities across all three regions of Nunavut, as well as Nunavik, along with territorial and federal government representatives.

The discussion focused on how best to advance local priorities like conserving country food species, creating Guardians programs and establishing Inuit-led protected areas.

Beyond fostering further collaboration among these three Kitikmeot communities, it provided an opportunity for programs like Foxe Basin Kivalliq North Sapujiyiit (Guardians of the Sea) Society to share their experiences and contribute to a broader network of Inuit conservation leaders. It also built on momentum from a smaller-scale knowledge exchange event we hosted in Yellowknife in May 2023.

TUA manager Jimmy Ullikatalik with WWF-Canada’s Brandon Laforest beside an Inuktitut-language map of the Aqviqtuuq IPCA. © Emina Ida / WWF-Canada

And in the spring, TUA and WWF-Canada staffers returned to Kugaaruk and Gjoa Haven to update leaders on Aqviqtuuq’s progress and hold public meetings so residents could learn more about Taloyoak’s efforts to protect their land, water and wildlife.

WWF-Canada has been honoured to support their regional-scale protection and conservation efforts, which now include both Kugaaruk and Gjoa Haven Hunters and Trappers Associations (HTAs) deeply engaged in the benefits of an IPCA, and Kugaaruk initiating their own Guardians Program.

“It’s important because it goes to our forefathers, generations back, and how they grew up before colonization, before the Church, before Hudson’s Bay, before the RCMP,” said TUA treasurer Viola Neeveacheak, reflecting on the knowledge-sharing trip.

“It goes back to how we used to live — the traditional way without being interrupted — and it should still continue that way.”