Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a renowned Inuk activist and former chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), recently said, “Indigenous knowledge and wisdom is the medicine the world seeks.”

She was speaking during an online event last week, hosted by law firm Gowling WLG, in honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Over the years, Watt-Cloutier has influenced the dialogue about Indigenous rights and climate action. She has also been significantly vocal about the impacts of climate change on Arctic communities, while fighting environmental injustice on a global front.

She described how Indigenous peoples, “the ground truthers,” have long experienced changes to the climate. As they rely on a deep partnership with nature, the wellbeing of the earth affects their food sources and teachings.

“The ice is our lifeforce,” she said of the Arctic. “It’s our transportation that takes us out to our environment, not just for our food source, but for the training. Our younger generations learn so much about themselves when they’re out there in nature.”

Greater understanding of the human implications of climate change is shifting the narrative. As she explained, Indigenous youth must grapple with stress from their history and legacy of family systems, but also stressors stemming from the modern world. Such teachings on land and ice not only develop technical skills for becoming providers and natural conservatives, but also build inner resilience.

“The kids that have had that grounding, we’re finding, are more apt to adapt better and address the stressors of the modern day without immediately taking their own lives. There’s that human connection to all of this.

“The technical aspects are about how the world works. But the actual character-building skills, such as the patience, the endurance, the courage, the boldness, the persistence, the focus, the determination and building your sound judgment and wisdom. . . those are about how you work.

“Our youth need to be taught that in order to be able not just to survive the modern-day settings and the legacy that they carry on their shoulders, but also to be able to thrive and become the young people and the champions of the Arctic themselves.”

Watt-Cloutier was instrumental in the global negotiations that led to the 2001 Stockholm Convention banning the generation and use of persistent organic pollutants in the Arctic food chain. While serving as ICC Chair, she launched the first legal action linking climate change to human rights, in the context of the Inuit. In her book, The Right to Be Cold, published in 2015, readers can learn more about her advocacy and the effects of climate change on Inuit communities.

“The narrative has to change from one of just ice and polar bears,” she urges. “When it comes to climate change, of the Arctic, it has to be the human face.”

This past spring, in April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of more than 2,000 Swiss women, that the Swiss government had violated the human rights of its citizens by failing to do enough to combat climate change. The ruling set a precedent for future climate lawsuits.

During a recent meeting with some of these women, Watt-Cloutier was told that they found her petition quite helpful for their case’s landmark ruling. “We have to start to really build that narrative now, about the human cost of all of this, and we can turn to the Indigenous world for the teachings that the world is so lacking in,” she said.

To “reimagine a way forward with intention” means respecting Indigenous values and principles. “We are not just our traumas,” she said. “We want to be teachers of sustainability because we are natural teachers of sustainability.”

Looking at different ways to explore economic development in the Arctic is also essential, which includes promoting a conservation economy in the North, where the hunters, who are natural conservationists, would be paid to conserve and protect the areas of the Arctic.

Back in 2021, while speaking at the Arctic Development Expo, then ICC President Monica Ell-Kanayuk said, in its early stages, the Inuit vision of a conservation economy was “centered on development that supports communities by providing sustainable jobs based on partnerships that recognize that Inuit continue to be the best stewards of our land and waters.”

“We understand conservation as a way to sustain the resources that we rely on to feed our families, share our food, celebrate our catch and pass on our knowledge,” she said. “This in turn provides spiritual balance, mental and physical well-being, traditional values, medicines, energy, identity, and overall cultural sustainability. The connection between the economy and a healthy environment is, for us, obvious.

“As Inuit have used and occupied the Arctic for 1000’s of years, we assume the responsibility to ensure meaningful and equitable roles for Inuit are built into any conservation efforts. Protected and/or conserved areas developed through a conservation economy approach creates meaningful jobs in Inuit-led research, monitoring, as stewards, for artisans and harvesters.”

To make a difference in the fight against climate change, Sheila Watt-Cloutier noted the inward journey that one must take. “Once you know these issues, don’t be on a mission to save us, because that approach is the root cause of many of the problems we face by stripping away our own wisdom to know what it is that we need to do, and the oppression that happened, the suppression and the traumas we need to heal,” she said.

“Really start to see what it is that you could be doing differently within your own family system, your own city, your own municipality with your own politicians, and so on. That helps us in the Arctic in the long run.”

Something that is crucially missing from international climate negotiations, she finds, is a “heartbeat”, the motivation to make a difference for future generations. We got to feel our way through,” she said. “Not just think our way through.”

She believes that leadership is about working from a principled and ethical place within oneself and champions the importance of inner transformation.

“The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one,” she said. “So, we start with ourselves, and the attitudes that have been ingrained in us through education or through history have to shift and change. If we want to fully reconcile with Indigenous peoples—because I think personal transformation can lead to that human revolution that is so necessary today—the narrative has to change.”