Hundreds of thousands of indigenous people living in the Arctic region may have to abandon their traditional way of life if global warming is not halted, indigenous community leaders warned this week.
"The foundation of our hunting culture is the cold. It needs it to continue and thrive," Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Canadian Inuit activist -- and a nominee for this year's Nobel Peace Prize -- told a climate change conference held this week in the Norwegian town of Tromsoe.
Around 155,000 Inuits live in northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland.
Over the past 30 years, the Arctic ice sheet has been steadily shrinking, with the snow-covered regions of the northern hemisphere also reducing.
The Arctic is warming up twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to scientists.
It is now feared global warming will jeopardise traditional activities that depend on snow and ice, such as reindeer husbandry or hunting.
This would affect not only the Inuits, but also the Samis, who live across northern Scandinavia and Russia, and the Nenets and the Chukchees of northern Siberia, among others.
Already Inuit hunters looking for polar bears, seals or walruses are having problems with the sea ice forming too late in the autumn and breaking up too early in the spring.
And even when it is formed, the ice is not strong enough and is dangerous, Watt-Cloutier said.
"We have had more accidents and deaths as a result of that," she told AFP.
Hunters have had to adapt to these new conditions, Watt-Cloutier explained.
"Because they are so wise and ingenious, our hunters are already learning to read quickly which ice is safe and which is not. They reroute themselves to get to the same place they used to go to directly before," she said.
"They know that storms come up quicker than before. So they take more food and fuel when they are travelling," she added.
But adaptation can only work up to a point.
"Because our hunting culture is based on the cold, the ice and snow, climate change is deteriorating and damaging the very foundations upon which our culture is based," she explained.
She described global warming as a violation of human rights.
"It will diminish and damage our rights to hunt, culture, health, subsistence, property, safety or security, which are all defined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights," she said.
Similarly for the Samis, "change is coming so fast that our traditional way of life is threatened," Johan Mikkel Sara, vice president of the Sami parliament in Norway, told AFP.
Many among the Samis, numbering about 100,000 people, depend on reindeer husbandry for their livelihood.
Usually, reindeer spend the winter on the inland plateau of northern Scandinavia and migrate about mid-April to the Barents Sea coast, where they stay until around mid-October. But problems have arisen.
"Some herders have had to delay the migration to the coast by a month because it was too mild. Rivers and lakes were not frozen enough to cross," Elna Sara from the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry told AFP.
Traditionally the reindeer walk across the plateau to reach the coast, while the herders themselves use snowmobiles or four-wheel motorbikes.
But, Sara explained, "in the past five years, some herders have had to put the reindeers in trucks to make the migration."
Reindeer also have more difficulties finding food these days.
"It rains more often in winter. If it freezes afterwards, the snow is covered with ice and the reindeers can't dig through to find lichen," explains Sara, dressed in a gaki, a traditional Sami costume with detailed embroideries and silver jewellery.
And new insect species from southern regions are threatening the animals.
Wood ticks, which up until now were found in southern Norway, have started migrating north because of warmer temperatures.
"They suck the blood out of reindeer and give them infections and diseases," Johan Mikkel Sara told AFP.
"The future is becoming too unpredictable. If it continues like this, reindeer husbandry might have to stop," he added.
"Change is happening so fast that traditional people may not have the capacity to adapt ... If traditional activities become too difficult, people may decide to abandon them, move to the big cities and get 'normal' jobs," he said.
