GREENLAND - The dilemma of ice

Transcription

1 GREENLAND - The dilemma of ice By Samuel Turpin Photo 01 - Niels and his daughter Arnatasiaq push icebergs that drift too close to their fishing nets with their boats. It is extremely risky because the iceberg can shift at any moment. The effects of climate change are releasing more and smaller sized icebergs that are drifting and dragging fishing nets, causing both financial and environmental damage. The pack ice is also much more fragile in winter, making trips by sledging or snowmobiling more risky.

2 Photo 02 - Niels leaves the harbour of Qeqertaq for the fishing area where he put his nets two days ago. It is 3AM. Between late June and mid-september, the day is permanent in Greenland. The village of Qeqertaq, with 110 inhabitants in Disko Bay, is entirely dependent on fishing. The men fish while most of the women work at the small processing plant and warehouse installed by the company Royal Greenland. 2

3 Photo 03 - Niels and his daughter Arnatasiaq carefully observe the direction of the iceberg s drift. Niels remembers that 20 years ago the bay was frozen from early December to late May. He travelled with dogs and sleds. Now, the bay is only frozen between January and April. 3

4 Photo 04 - Temperatures on the western part of the coast have increased by 5 C in winter, 3 C in spring and autumn, and between 0 C and 1 C in summer since The variations are unequal from one place to another depending on the winds and the the ocean currents. It is also difficult to measure the evolution of temperatures outside the coastal zones, because the Inlandsis ice cap - which makes up 80% of the island - remains mostly inaccessible and requires major scientific resources. 4

5 Photo 05 - Niels and his team start bringing the nets on board, trapping the fish in the center of the net. It's an excellent catch, but Niels is not satisfied or reassured. They have caught cod, not halibut. A kilogram of cod goes for three times less than halibut. That means three times more effort, energy and time for the same result. 5

6 Photo 06 - Fishermen bring the fish on board with a big landing net. Coastal fishermen do not use mechanized systems. The fish are directly emptied on the main deck of the boat before storing them in ice-filled boxes. The coastal fishing sector (5,000 boats) provides the vast majority of employment opportunities for villagers on the west coast. 6

7 Photo was an exceptional year for halibut fishing. The authorities decided to lift all quotas despite recommendations by environmental monitoring organizations and committees. The state-owned Royal Greenland Company posted a profit of 954 million euros in But since the beginning of the 2017 season, the halibut have disappeared, according to fishermen. 7

8 Photo 08 - Biologists have warned of a decrease in halibut in Disko Bay in recent years. The Bay is yet also biologically rich. Stock assessments by scientists show that the halibut population has declined over the last 10 to 15 years and that the fish are on average 10 centimeters smaller than 10 years ago. Despite recommendations that were approved by all stakeholders in April including the big fishing companies - the Minister of Fisheries continues to deny that there is overfishing of halibut and refuses to lower the quota. 8

9 Photo 09 - The fishing industry, dominated by the state-owned company Royal Greenland and the private company Polar Seafood, is now focused on shrimp and halibut in deep water, after overfishing cod for three centuries. 300 small trawlers and 25 large trawlers are registered under Norwegian, Chinese and Greenlandic flags. For 5 years, fishermen have been seeing new species in their nets, such as mackerel, which are slowly leaving the North Atlantic in search of colder waters. 9

10 Photo 10 - Niels releases fishing nets from icebergs that drifted in the span of a few hours. Studies show that Inuit who depend on hunting or fishing for their livelihood are the populations the most affected by climate change. They face difficulties in finding other sources of income because of the regulations in place, lack of opportunities, and a lack of training and language skills needed to change sectors. 10

11 Photo 11 - Niels and his team take a break after more than 8 hours of work in the cold. They talk about a recent visit of foreign engineers to the site of the former Black Angel coal mine near Uumannaq. The site closed in the early 1990s, leaving local workers without jobs and no alternatives. The Greenlandic authorities, with the approval of Denmark, granted five mining licenses to major mining companies - mainly American and Australian - after lifting the ban on the exploitation of radioactive ore in It is a real political shift after the moratorium that blocked all nuclear activity for the last 30 years. 11

12 Photo 12 - Recent polls show that Greenlanders do not support the exploitation of uranium and rare-earth metals, which are highly polluting. Demand for rare-earth metals is growing in all over the world for use in electronics. China -with 88% of world production- currently has the monopoly. But Uranium leaves bad memories for Inuit. It is associated to the crash of an American B52 that crashed in 1968 near Thule, with 4 hydrogen bombs on board. The consequences of this event are still not well known. 12

13 Photo 13 - Niels returns to Qeqertaq after 16 hours of work. The cargo is unloaded for weighing, then is stored directly in the village's warehouse. Arnatassiaq, Niels' daughter, says she worked in the factory every day during the 2016 season. This year, she only works two half days a week. In September, she will study in Denmark with plans to return in three years to apply for a management position in Qeqertaq or another village. More and more young women are receiving scholarships to study in Nuuk or Copenhagen for tourism development, with the hope that Greenland can eventually reach financial autonomy. The change of women s position in the household can sometimes destabilize couples. 13

14 Photo 14 - Although Inuit s -particularly self-made hunters and fishermen- appear to be very "adaptable" to climate change, the centralizing tendencies imposed by the Home Rule have reduced the flexibility and diversity in the use of resources that have traditionally supported the Inuit s ability to adapt. This has contributed to the emergence of conflicts over the use of resources. 14

15 Photo 15 - Niels return to Qeqertaq after more than 16 hours of work. He will leave again after a few quick hours of rest. Fishermen take advantage of the summer season when the sea is free of ice. "I do not know what else to do," says Niels. "Fishing is my life here." By boat in the summer, and by plunging hooks in the winter. Niels has spent his entire life in Qeqertaq. Like his father and grandfather. Except in , when he decided to try his luck on Disko Island, on the other side of the Bay, when the cod left this side of the water. 15

16 Photo 16 - The Royal Greenland company cargo ship arrives every 15 days during the high season to collect the stock in the local warehouse. The warehouse is regularly over capacity, especially when Greenlandic authorities lift quotas. The cargo ship can no longer sail when the water begins to freeze. 16

17 Photo 17 - With a population of 55,847 as of January 2016 (almost 65% in urban areas) on an island 5 times bigger than France, Greenland is the least densely populated country in the world. 17

18 Photo 18 - Although geographically located on the North American continent, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe - particularly Norway and Denmark, their colonial masters, and the neighboring island of Iceland for more than a millennium. The island was a strategic observation base during the Cold War, which allowed for the control of military shipping and supply routes, as well as long-range missile trajectories. Recent publications reveal that the United States had offered to buy the island from Denmark for 100 million USD as early as

19 Photo 19-81% of Greenland is covered by an ice cap (Inlandsis) that can reach 3kms thick. Because of the ice s weight, the earth's crust has sunk 800 meters; this phenomenon, called isostasis, has been reversed for the last 10 years, like a cork held under water and then released, when the cap melts. 19

20 Photo 20 - The Greenland ice sheet represents a volume of 2 million cubic kilometers of ice, or 10% of the world s freshwater supply. Almost all the rest of the supply is held in the Antarctic ice sheet, except for 2% found in the world s lakes and rivers. Greenland and the North Pole area are highly exposed to the Albedo effect. For the first time this summer, Greenland experienced fires that ravaged the tundra at the coastline was the hottest year Greenland recorded since the beginning of

21 Photo 21 - The Harbour of Uumamannaq. Fishermen sneak their "Poca" - boats specifically engineered for the Arctic- between the big companies cargo ships and the icebergs. Through Denmark, Greenland joined the European Community in 1973 (despite 75% of Greenlanders rejecting this) but withdrew in 1985 following a controversy over fishing quotas. As a member of the European Union, European fishing companies were allowed to fish in Greenland s waters, which disadvantaged local fishermen. Since 1985, relations with the European Union have been based on special agreements. 21

22 Photo 22 - During the summer season, the Inuit hunt seals in speedboats. Hunters share information via mobile phones and social networks. Seals are one of the rare species that are not subject to quotas, because they are not threatened with extinction. Animal protection campaigns showing the pristine ice sheet stained with seal blood exasperate the Inuit. "This is not a reality, simply." 22

23 Photo 23 - The hunter observes each movement of the water to spot a seal rising to the water s surface. Hunting is today a hobby. The meat business is restricted, and skins or other products are sold only on the local market. The meat is cooked grilled, stewed or frozen. 23

24 Photo 24 - The bell, with the primary school and the church in the background, is in the center of Qeqertaq village. Beginning in the seventeenth century, many Dutch, German and English whalers competed on the southern coast of Greenland. Hans Egede, a Norwegian pastor, led the first evangelistic expeditions in 1721, and set up trading along the coast. This is considered as the beginning of Danish colonization. The trading monopoly was only abolished in

25 Photo 25 - The village has no social meeting spaces, except a small supermarket -pillersuisoq- the church, the primary school and the communal house that offers services like laundry. Waste management remains a real problem for all villages in Greenland. Villagers come together for annual festivals. Social networks such as Facebook have connected Greenland to the real World, especially for young people. Living in remote areas like Qeqertaq can be hard during the winter season. 25

26 Photo 26 - The new economic opportunities created by the melting ice have increased hopes for economic and political independence from Denmark. But recent opinion polls show that a majority of Greenlanders want to maintain a privileged relationship with Denmark. "Mixed" families are proof of the integration of the two cultures. 26

27 Photo 27 - The village children play together. They enjoy the sunlight during the summer months. Greenlanders remain strongly connected to their traditions and history, but are also strongly attracted to Danish and American ways of life. Money has become a sought-after value, increasing inequalities between families. As a result, many suffer from a strong identity dilemma, similar to other colonized countries: the "forced" appropriation of the colonizing culture and the need to stay connected with the culture of origin. 27

28 Photo 28 - The population of Qeqertaq is decreasing year after year. Young people have to leave their families at 14 to go to school in bigger cities. Older people have to go to nursing homes in urban areas, given the lack of services and the hard conditions during the winter. Greenland gained autonomy after a referendum in 1979 and in % of the yearly national Greenlandic budget still comes from a Danish contribution of 500 million euros (1% of the Danish national budget). Without this contribution, health or education services, for example, would no longer work. 28

29 Photo 29 - Teenagers from Qeqertaq meet at the harbor. They talk about their boredom, but also their strong attachment to their family and traditions. Greenland has the highest suicide rate in the world. 20% of young people admit to having thought about suicide. 29