This week, 15,000 people and 60
heads of state and youth like myself from 170 countries are meeting in
Copenhagen to discuss the urgent need for a new UN climate agreement.
Climate change is the biggest
challenge humanity has ever faced and yet to most Canadians the current and
potential impacts feel far away. We commonly associate the impacts of climate
change with the decreasing polar bear numbers, an iceless Arctic, or ravaging
storms and floods in southern regions. What many Canadians don't realize is
that climate change is having a large impact in Canada right now.
I am a Dene youth from the small
town of Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories. I am attending the UN Summit on
Climate Change in Copenhagen to communicate the concerns that my family, my
people, and my culture are confronted with every single day.
Climate change is the largest
threat Dene culture has ever faced. We are experiencing impacts that are
threatening not only our culture, but our survival. Hunting is sacred in Dene
culture and yet our caribou herds are declining. Water levels are
unpredictable. Ice is thin and unsafe for travel. And these are just some of
the current effects. In the future our land will be completely changed, and may
be so contaminated we are unable to eat even the invasive species that will
eventually replace our caribou.
The reality is that climate
change is having tangible and devastating consequences in a part of Canada that
few people experience or see. We are experiencing the impacts now, and they are
getting worse every year.
And Dene people are not alone
here.
I never fully understood the
word "solidarity" until I learned about the climate-related plights of other
indigenous and impoverished populations. Billions of people on this planet are
affected by climate change. Droughts, hurricanes, and rising sea levels are
examples of the life-destroying impacts faced by billions of people throughout
the next century. We must make a choice to help these people or let them die.
Just as we must choose to either help my people, or let our culture die. I join
the chorus of the world's most marginalized and vulnerable people, all faced
with the prospect of loss of home and loss of culture.
Traditional Dene skills are
passed down from father to son, mother to daughter, from generation to
generation. Hunting is so important to us that my great grandfather Chief
T'selehye and others signed treaties to protect our rights to hunt.
Along with a whole generation of
Dene youth, I am now tasked with preserving and passing on our hunting
culture. This is great deal of
responsibility. For years we have
struggled to preserve our culture while modern influences try to slap it out of
our hands. Television, internet,
drugs and alcohol, wage economies, mandatory education, I can't say all these
are bad, but they represent a massive shift in lifestyle that Dene people have
experienced, and holding on to our culture through these tumultuous times has
been difficult.
But in spite of all those things
I used to think the fate of the culture of the Dene people was in our hands to
save. Today, most of us participate in the wage economy and yes, most Dene
people are now Roman Catholic. But no, our culture is not lost yet and its
preservation is not a lost cause. The deck has been stacked against us in the
past, but all these obstacles to cultural preservation and proliferation are
within our control to conquer.
Well, that is how I used to
think, when it seemed our cultural fate was still in our hands.
Climate change is a problem the
Dene cannot solve on our own. We need the help of Canada and the world. Despite
federal foot-dragging, I am a hopeful that the UN summit in Copenhagen this
week provides the opportunity for dialogue, for the exchange of our stories and
personal experiences, so that we as a nation can begin to walk the talk and
close the gap between rhetoric and action. The solutions are clear and
science-based - we need pollution reduction targets in place immediately. The
economic analysis is equally as clear; Canada can take the necessary action on
climate change while growing its economy.
I hope this is not where my
story ends. A proud Dene man on a mission to share the stories of climate
change impacts with an international audience.
Canada can take action, and
whether we do or not is a moral question.
Daniel T'Seleie is a Dene, originally from Fort Good Hope, now living
in Yellowknife NWT. He is on the Canadian Youth Delegation participating in the
U.N. Climate Summit in Copenhagen.
