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THE APPROACH OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES
“Putting greater emphasis on regulating activities “Alaskan cruises attracted 1.6 million tourists last year,
within the polar regions is an essential strategy involving more than 250 ships. The first problems identified
for the conservation and protection of the global in my community are water quality, waste management,
environment”, concluded the round-table’s moderator,
Andrew Heinrich, Professor in the School of overcrowding on our buses, and also the impact on cetaceans
International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in their feeding grounds. We don’t have coastguards. We
(USA), before calling for the universal adoption of need to set up a monitoring system. Next year, rangers will be
the precautionary principle: “Potentially dangerous monitoring these areas, but we need more support. We have
practices are coming along and spreading so quickly been regulating our activities for hundreds of years. It’s very
that we are unable to assess the impacts in real time. difficult to deal with these rapid changes. Often people start
In the absence of scientific certainty, we must uphold taking action when it’s too late. If there was a permit system
and more fully embrace the precautionary principle in in place, it would lessen the impact on communities. Some
all laws relating to the poles”. operators are in agreement, others not. My people must have
environmental representation at governance level. We have
been living in Alaska for 10,000 years and we are thinking
IDENTIFYING APPROPRIATE about how best to protect the Arctic for the next 10,000 years.”
LEGAL TOOLS
Judith Daxootsú Ramos, Assistant Professor, University of
Moratoria, licences and permits, marine protected Alaska Southeast (USA)
areas, international conventions and organisations,
bilateral treaties and national legislation were among
the legal tools examined by the round-table, which
proved to be a debate on applied law, not just on
legal doctrine. “The reality of the way in which laws
are applied in practice – and of course the impact
of political will on their ability to be promulgated in
the first place – are equally important considerations
in deciding which tool to use”, noted Andrew
Heinrich. The panel members then stressed the
need for inclusiveness in the legal approach to
these environments, particularly the Arctic where
the Indigenous peoples should be an integral part
of the decision-making process. It is also important
to involve the sizeable community of researchers
in governance issues, as mentioned by Johanna
Ikävalko, Director of the Arctic Centre at the University
of Lapland (Finland).