ABSTRACT
The claim that indigenous peoples are original ecologists, wise and responsible users of natural resources, ‘people who for centuries have lived in harmony with nature’ (Lynge 1992:5) is at the heart of indigenous discourse on Arctic environmental management. Faced with threats to cultural survival, indigenous peoples’ organisations such as the ICC argue for greater awareness of the effectiveness of indigenous resource use systems for the conservation of natural resources. Indigenous perspectives on Arctic conservation are also used by indigenous peoples in order to construct for themselves an identity as custodians of the Arctic environment, and to challenge ‘dominant ideological formulations and practices that support environmental degradation’ (Breyman 1993:127). The successful outcome of struggles for self-determination depends on indigenous peoples regaining and reasserting control over both lands and resources and establishing strategies for sustainable resource exploitation. Furthermore, growing international recognition of the limits of conventional resource management based on rational, reductionist, objective science has, over the last decade in particular, focused interest in what has been called traditional or indigenous environmental knowledge.
