Nunavut Asserts Its Autonomy With New Wildlife Law
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2000
October 2, 2000
IQALUIT, Nunavut, Canada, October 2, 2000 (ENS) - With the stroke of a pen, Nunavut leaders took the first step last week towards creating a new wildlife law for Canada's newest territory - Nunavut.
Nunavut means "our land" in Inuktitut, the language of the native Inuit. Established as a territory in April 1999, it accounts for 1.9 million square kilometers, nearly one fifth the size of Canada. As such it represents a considerable challenge from a wildlife management perspective.
Representatives of the Nunavut government, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI), and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board met in Nunavut's capital Iqaluit Friday to sign terms of reference for creating a task force to devise a new law governing the management of the territory's wildlife.
NTI is legislated to work with the Canadian government, the government of the Northwest Territories, and other agencies on issues critical to Nunavut.
The act will replace the old Northwest Territories Wildlife Act, which is still in effect in Nunavut.
The act inherited from the Northwest Territories conflicts in many ways with the 1993 Nunavut land claims agreement, said Stephen Pinksen, an employee of Nunavut's Department of Sustainable Development.
Because the land claims agreement is part of the federal Constitution, it has higher legal standing than the old wildlife law. A new Nunavut Wildlife Act would reconcile territorial law with the 1993 agreement, Pinksen said.
"We are looking forward to the implementation of this agreement so the act will comply with the land claims agreement," said NTI president Paul Quassa in Inuktitut.
Speaking in Inuktitut at the signing, Ben Kovic, chair of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, pledged that the new act will be drafted with much public consultation.
"The Nunavut government can't do this alone," he said. "We need your support as representatives of the communities. We will be consulting with you at the local level."
Pinksen said the new act will be created in a two year process, largely through consultation with hunters and trappers throughout the territory.
"This working group process is a real change," Pinksen said. "In the past, the government wrote the legislation and the people put up with it." Now, the people who use the wildlife will actually be writing the laws.
"That's pretty big stuff," he said.
The working group process began this weekend at a Nunavut wildlife symposium in Iqaluit, where officials asked for advice on how best to hold consultations with hunters and trappers.
"I think the communities can best tell us how and when to conduct the meetings," Pinksen said.
The new act will differ significantly from the old one in order to be in line with the land claims agreement.
Under the old Wildlife Act, for instance, Inuit need licenses in order to hunt. But the land claims agreement does not require such licenses, and the Nunavut wildlife act likely will not either.
In another example, the old act allows non-Inuit people to trap fur-bearing animals as long as the trappers have a licence. Such trapping is prohibited in the land claims agreement, and will probably be made illegal under the new act.
Speaking at the signing, Ben Kovic promised that Nunavut wildlife harvesters have nothing to fear from the new act. "As hunters and trappers your rights will not be taken away," he said. "It will reemphasize your rights as hunters."
"This is a very big and important act," Kovic said.
Published in cooperation with Nunatsiaq News http://www.nunatsiaq.com/nunavut/index.html