Freeman, Milton M.R.

English

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194 • REVIEWSPROTECTING THE ARCTIC: INDIGENOUS PEOPLESAND CULTURAL SURVIVAL. MARK NUTTALL. Am-sterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998. ISBN90-5702-354-7. (hardbound). 195 p., map, index, bib.Hardbound, US$48.00; Softbound, US$20.00.This book focuses upon the involvement of Arctic indig-enous peoples in international environmental policy mak-ing. It does so by examining indigenous groups’ claimsand uses of indigenous knowledge, their subsistence hunt-ing and involvement in the global economy and the grow-ing arctic tourism industry, and the construction of an“indigenous environmentalism.” According to Nuttall,these are all critical issues that continue to shape environ-mental discourse in the contemporary Arctic.The author states that with respect to the Arctic environ-ment and resource development, indigenous peoples’ or-ganizations “play a pivotal role in agenda setting andpolitical debate...challenging the authority of the state andquestioning both the processes and meanings of modernityand development...and have been the driving force behindmany recent initiatives in Arctic environmental protectionand sustainable development” (p. 23).In reviewing recent environmental policy making,Nuttall examines how indigenous knowledge (IK or TEK)has been institutionalized (and thereby legitimated) bysuch international regimes as the Arctic EnvironmentProtection Strategy and the Arctic Council and how IKarticulates with diverse—and contested—visions of sus-tainable development. In an assessment of options foreconomically viable sustainable development, Nuttallexamines two in particular: the development of mar-kets for marine mammal products and arctic tourism. Inregard to marketing marine mammal products, the au-thor identifies a number of national and internationalconstraints facing indigenous peoples trying to developsmall-scale, community-based economic enterprisesthat involve the sustainable use of these local resources.These constraints include the opposition of many influ-ential anti-whaling groups to accepting that ediblewhale products be offered for sale.The debate about the role of money in subsistence isdescribed well. Nuttall (in common with other socialscientists) notes that subsistence economies are dependentupon market forces and monetization. The boundariesbetween subsistence and commercial activities are neces-sarily blurred, and have been so for more than a century inthe Arctic: “When [Greenlanders] sell seal and whale meatand fish...they are participating in forms of exchangewhich have long been part of the subsistence economy”(p. 114). Although animal protection groups and someenvironmentalists hold that the selling of meat by huntersis nontraditional and leads to resource depletion, huntersand most outsiders familiar with contemporary huntingsocieties see it as an adaptive strategy that is essential forpeople living in a modern and rapidly industrializingsociety: “Money is a supplement to the subsistence economygenerally, and is part of a symbolically constructed frame-work  that emphasises cultural continuity rather than beingbased on large-scale profit” (p. 114).Nuttall emphasizes the need to place any analysis ofArctic issues into a global context and to avoid an exclu-sively Arctic-centred perspective apparently adopted bythe Arctic Council. The activities of transnational corpo-rations and the consequences of transnational practices areimportant for the future of the circumpolar North becausedecisions affecting resources are made elsewhere, oftennot even in the capitals of the Arctic states.In emphasizing the role indigenous peoples need to taketo ensure that Arctic development initiatives are sustain-able, Nuttall states: “Resource agencies need to take intoaccount the environmental values of local people andadopt a participatory approach to resource management”(p. 123). A fact not mentioned, but nevertheless worthnoting, is that the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Com-mission [NAMMCO] is currently studying how to accom-plish this. The author also observes that “indigenous peopleswould rather have self-management than co-managementand the power to decide on the quotas that they feel theyshould be able to set” (p. 123). Again, it is worth notingthat the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board recentlydevolved decision making on narwhal (and some beluga)quotas to community hunters’ associations. And when theauthor concludes that “the future of whaling…relies onreconciling the interests of…local communities…and…environmental and conservationist organisations” (p. 123),it is gratifying to report that World Wildlife Fund-Canadahas taken a commendable lead in recognizing the conser-vation benefits that result from responsible whaling prac-tices in Canadian Inuit and Inuvialuit communities.Nuttall discusses the potential contributions that cul-tural tourism and ecotourism—if carefully developed—can make to Arctic sustainable development. However,increasing the numbers of tourists and encouraging themto part with more money will require increases in infra-structure investment. In view of this need for expensiveinfrastructure development in regions generally operatingwith deficit funding, the author’s lack of reference totourism based upon sport hunting was surprising. In theCanadian North, the economic benefits derived from thevisits of sport hunters to Inuit communities are consider-able, sustainable, and require little local investment. Inaddition, the Canadian Federal-Provincial Polar Bear Tech-nical Committee recently drew attention to the conserva-tion benefits of hunting (e.g., fewer bears, and fewerfemale bears, are killed than under a purely subsistenceregime). In addition, it is reported that young Inuit menappear to look favourably upon guiding sport hunters, andsuch guiding serves to strengthen certain traditional cul-tural norms and practices.The discussion on indigenous knowledge (IK) is wide-ranging and insightful. The author draws useful attentionto the dangers inherent in decontextualizing IK—dangersthat some indigenous spokespersons appear to ignore whenREVIEWS • 195advocating aggressive efforts to commit oral informationto computerized databases before it is lost. Nuttall ob-serves that IK “is a difficult and long enough process toexplain and teach in local contexts, where it is vital andreal, so how can it be gathered and stored in databaseswithout decontextualising it and depriving it of meaning?”(p. 172). Acknowledging the continual loss, modification,and addition to the stock of IK, Nuttall argues for a re-contextualization of knowledge, to relocate it within ap-propriate local spheres. Insofar as IK is seen to be importantfor ensuring that resource use is sustainable, this suggeststhe importance of an ongoing involvement of local usercommunities in all aspects of decision making regardingresource use.With regard to his extensive discussion on indigenouscommunities’ whaling practices, the author has been care-ful to distinguish between the actions and beliefs of con-servationists, those of environmentalists, and those ofadvocates for animal rights. However, he is less careful instating that opposition to the Makah gray whale hunt camefrom conservationists. In fact, the opposition to the Makahgray whale hunt was voiced overwhelmingly by radicalenvironmentalists (espousing a protectionist position),animal welfare and animal rights supporters, anti-Indianactivists, and political opportunists. The author also makesreference to indigenous people as “managers” of livingresources (e.g., p. 99). However, despite the use of theterm “manager” (or “management”) by some indigenousspokespersons, indigenous people are increasingly at painsto point out that the term “management” is not merelyinappropriate (“how can humans manage animals’ behav-iour?”) but, according to indigenous values, it is ethicallyoffensive (as it implies human control over nature). Else-where the author shows appreciation of indigenous con-cern about others’ inappropriate use of the term“wilderness” when referring to their homelands—whichare anything but untrammeled by human activity, havingbeen fully occupied for millennia.This book is a useful examination of the ongoing debateregarding sustainable development in the Arctic, althoughfocused mostly upon Greenland and Alaska, where theauthor has personal experience. The book should appeal toa broad readership of Northerners and northernists, envi-ronmentalists, and those with an interest in contemporaryindigenous affairs. It is mercifully jargon-free, although itcould have benefited from tighter editing, as there are anumber of repetitive sections and several incorrect spell-ings of names (e.g., Chisasibi, Watt-Cloutier, Marquardt,Stenbaek). This reader also regrets the publisher’s choiceof very small print for the notes at the end of each chapter.Milton M.R. FreemanCanadian Circumpolar InstituteUniversity of AlbertaEdmonton, Alberta, CanadaT6G 2E1RINGED SEALS IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC. Editedby M.P. HEIDE-JØRGENSEN and C. LYDERSEN. Tromsø,Norway: NAMMCO Scientific Publications, 1998. Vol.1. ISBN 82-91578-04-4. 273 p., maps, b&w and colourillus., bib. Hardbound. NOK 350.00.The primary goal of this volume was to compile papers thatreflect the present state of knowledge on ringed seals in theNorth Atlantic. However, it also includes information onother ringed seal populations, such as the relict Baltic,Ladoga and Saimaa seals, and studies on ringed seals in theRussian Arctic and the Canadian Western Arctic. The vol-ume covers a wide range of topics, from biology to popu-lation assessment, feeding, and contaminants in seal tissues.A difficulty in trying to construct a unified volume ona particular species from a group of separate papers is thatthe articles themselves vary in scope and subject matter. Itfalls on the shoulders of the editors to blend these into apresentable form, by linking them together with a thor-ough introduction to the subject and outlining the areaswhere future research is needed.Of the 13 papers in the volume, the overview paper byRandall Reeves is probably the most useful. It is anextremely thorough summary of the many studies, bothpast and ongoing, that have been conducted on this impor-tant Arctic species. This paper also contradicts a statementin the introduction to the volume, which says that far toolittle is known about this dispersed and important marinemammal species. In fact, as can be seen in the overviewpaper, the ringed seal has long been the subject of researchby scientists seeking to manage Arctic seal populations inthe face of Inuit subsistence harvests. Several previousmonographs exist on the species from the Eastern andWestern Canadian Arctic. Reeve’s overview paper does anadmirable job of summarizing previous work and catalogingnew results from research now being done in the whole ofthe Arctic.It is inevitable that the quality of the individual papersin such a volume will vary greatly. Of the three papers thatsummarize the regional status and biology of ringed seals,the review by Christian Lydersen clearly shows that theNorwegians have been very effective at using modernmethods to advance our knowledge of the species. Re-search in Svalbard on captive and free-ranging ringedseals has yielded important new information on behaviourand energy budgets. However, Belikov’s paper on ringedseals in the Russian Arctic reflects the low level of re-search effort in that area. There is little new informationabout Russian ringed seal stocks, which are now relativelyunimportant in the local economies. Sipila and Hivarinen’spaper on the Saimaa and Ladoga ringed seals suffers froma lack of systematic scientific data and depends on manyanecdotal reports. Some intriguing and unexplained state-ments about large numbers of stillbirths vaguely linkedwith high levels of pollutants leave the reader wishing formore interpretation and analysis. Judging by the authors’description, the situation of the apparently endangered

Protecting the Arctic: Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Survival, by Mark Nuttall

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