Pavia Nielsen, Inuit Hunter and Fisherman
My name is Pavia Nielsen, I am a hunter and a fisherman. I want to say something about our forefathers’ knowledge about their catch and how they behave, which they have observed over the years.
First let me say, we, the people of the circumpolar, are called Inuit. The wild animals in land and sea have always been the most important for our survival. We’ve been hunting for many years, but still we haven’t exterminated any of them. I want to say that we people of the circumpolar live off of healthy food, food from the wild. Meat, whale, mattak and even frozen meat and fish are the cause of how we can hold the warmth. There’s no one other than us who lives like that, we will always need that culture today, tomorrow and in the future.
I was shocked when I heard both narwhals and belugas were of the animals that were in the list of danger of being exterminated. Maybe you can ask why? It is like that. Narwhals and belugas are all over the circumpolar sea. But not all the places, where the whales are, never fully controlled. Not even once the whale places in east Greenland have ever been controlled. So you cannot say that the narwhals and belugas are in danger.
Nowadays these certain kinds of whales are growing up in numbers. The reason for that is the global warming, which causes that there is less ice in the north, so the whales on ice entrapment don’t just die any longer. The narwhals and belugas breed, it is like that they already have another baby while nursing. That is why those whales are not in danger of extermination. The rights of wild animals are only to eat, breed and move around.
When the whale arrives at our position, it is already getting dark for the winter. So we practically only have 2 hours of light to hunt. That way the nature already sets limits for our hunting. Therefore we cannot hunt every single day. The force of nature that always has given us a hard time in the form of stronger and stronger wind is getting even harder, because of global warming. When the wind is so strong, it means less hunting.
After the strict restrictions of narwhals and belugas, it is hard to get healthy nutrition in the fall. We lost a lot! Even though we know and can see whales with our own eyes are multiplying. Our eyes won’t lie for us. When we are watching a lot of whales we have a saying between us hunters, “And they say they are in a dying breed.” This is not true!
Last fall in 2005, November 20th, it was very fine weather. For the first time in history so many narwhals were spotted in Uummannaq’s fjord. And the same day in Disko the hunters were catching a good amount of narwhals. And the very same day in Aasiaat they were catching a lot of whales as well. Any animal who is in danger of extermination cannot be everywhere along the coast within a lot of kilometers. If they are in danger of extermination, they wouldn’t be so many in different places in one day.
Every hunter I know is speaking the same as me. Please believe us, we are not talking falsehoods. You must rethink the restriction. We ask ICC to tell the world that the whales are not in danger. We ask them to discuss that Inuit hunters know their catch above all. And we say true. Believe my words. Maybe you will first believe me when I am dead.