The Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska has released the Inuit led report entitled Food Security and Self-Governance: Inuit Role in Managing Arctic Marine Resources. The Food Sovereignty and Self Governance Project is bringing Inuit together to lead their own work. To access the report, please visit the website of the Inuit Circumpolar Cuncil.
The project was co-developed with the Inuvialuit Game Council and the Fisheries Joint Management Council (Inuvialuit Settlement Region) and the Eskimo Walrus Commission (Alaska), the Inuit Circumpolar Council Alaska (ICC Alaska) and Environmental Law Institute (ELI). Since the development of the project, the Kuskokwim River Intertribal Fish Commission (Alaska) joined the group. These project partners work together with an Advisory Committee comprised of Inuit Indigenous Knowledge holders from Alaska and the Inuvialuit Settlement region to design and direct the project. The Project Partners and the Advisory Committee have worked together to develop the methodologies and outputs for this project and to lead the project activities.
With the intention to analyze management and co-management structures within Inuit Nunaat and to understand how those governing frameworks support or need to be modified to achieve Inuit food sovereignty, this project intends to examine the potential for Inuit living in Alaska and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of Canada to manage and co-manage resources important for food security of the Arctic region, and to further identify the tools that Inuit communities need to sustain the overall integrity of their communities.
The project will achieve the following objectives:
- Synthesize and evaluate existing frameworks for Inuit management and co-management of subsistence resources presently reflected in law, policies, and legal authorities in the United States and Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Canada;
- Evaluate how existing Inuit self-governance is operationalized by examining four co-management case studies focused on marine resources that are aimed at ensuring food sovereignty, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the social, political, and institutional parameters affecting implementation of key legal frameworks; and
- Assess how Inuit self-governance supports food security by evaluating food sovereignty objectives against the existing legal and structural frameworks and their effective implementation and outcomes.