Polar bear voted newsmaker of the year in Nunavut: A climate change emblem becomes a symbol of bitter conflict

This Nunatsiaq News editorial is worth a read (2 January 2019): Meet our newsmaker of the year: the polar bear.

“But for this year, we’re not choosing a person. For 2018, our newsmaker of the year designation goes to an entire species: the polar bear.

To earn that, the humble polar bear didn’t have to do much of anything. All they had to do was what polar bears have always done: hunt, eat, mate and protect their young.

In doing so, they caused two heart-rending Nunavut tragedies: the death of an Arviat man in July, followed by the death of a Naujaat man in August. These events have aggravated a bitter regional controversy that’s unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, especially in the Kivalliq region.”

It continues (my bold):

“But in Nunavut, the damage that environmentalists have inflicted on their cause will likely last for generations. Growing numbers of people in Nunavut not only believe polar bears are a threat to public safety. Growing numbers also believe that scientists and government wildlife managers are their enemy.

On that last point, the condescending attitudes of some researchers and government officials has been rather less than helpful.

For example, the federal Department of Environment and Climate Change said last fall, in a submission to the wildlife management board, that the Inuit position is “inconsistent with the federal listing of the polar bear as a species of special concern in Canada.”

That tone-deaf response simply reinforces the Inuit belief that governments value the lives of polar bears more than they value the lives of human beings.”

Read the whole thing here.