The Arctic is the most rapidly warming environment in the world and its Indigenous peoples are experiencing unprecedented change. It is drastically changing at a rate three-to-four times faster than the global average. These dramatic shifts in climatic conditions are impossible to ignore.
Across Arctic communities, Inuit and other Indigenous peoples are working to address the pressing climate issues we have inherited in the 21st century, such as: coastal erosion, ocean acidification, pollution, fluctuating and unpredictable wildlife populations, biodiversity loss, unsustainable resource extraction, and data gaps in almost all areas of Arctic research.
The Arctic is increasingly a focal point of outside public interest and engagement, particularly concerning the conservation of lands, waters, and species under threat of climate change. At the recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 26th Conference of Parties (COP26), countries from around the world touted their development of Arctic strategies, faced with new trade routes under diminishing sea ice extent, new economic pressures and business ventures as melting glaciers and inland ice exposes the Arctic’s rare earth minerals, and an accumulation of black carbon deposits as traffic in Arctic waterways accelerates. These activities are in stark contrast to the global demands for conservation and sustainability that were the focus of COP26.
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https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/the-new-north/arctic-conservation-in-the-hands-of-indigenous-peoples