Stop stealing our land, Inuits say, as Arctic resources race heats up

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

KANGERLUSSUAQ, Greenland (AFP) — With the race for Arctic resources intensifying, the region's indigenous Inuits are raising their voices and demanding that nations bordering the Arctic Sea stop stealing their land and respect their way of life.

Arctic waters could hold 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas, according to the US Geological Survey -- meaning countries like the United States and Russia, who once used the frozen wastelands as a strategic pawn in the Cold War, are now eyeing up its energy reserves.

"The Inuits have been marginalised in the current debate on the Arctic by those who now control our land and waters," Aqqaluk Lynge, a Greenlandic politician who is the head of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) on the island, told AFP, speaking...