Sustainable Communities by Reducing Dependency

Aperçu:

With climate change impacts looming in Arctic communities, and dependency on southern goods and services (e.g., fossil fuel energy, health products and services, food products, building materials) becoming ever more expensive, there is a great need for remote communities to explore practical ways to reduce their vulnerability to each dependency. They must reduce their cost of living, and become more sustainable in the long term. A recent paper proposing strategies for "entrepreneurial sustainable living in the North" was published by Dr David Malcolm in 2010 in the Aboriginal health journal Pimatisiwin and is available online in pdf format as http://www.pimatisiwin.com/online/?page_id=730. At the same time there is a great volume of practical research reported by a consortium of researchers with the name _Communitiy Adaptation and Vulnerability in Arctic Regions (CAVIAR)_ as part of the International Polar Year. The idea is first to consult youth and leaders in several northern communities in the NWT to find out what they see as their biggest challenges in reducing dependency on our southern neighbours and adapting to climate change, while at the same time improving economic conditions in their communities through their own entrepreneurial action. Secondly the knowledge available from CAVIAR and other sources will be used to help address these challenges. Several projects to increase social and economic wellbeing in these remote NWT communities will result from this idea. Good projects can always find appropriate funding. At the same time, developing and implementing these community projects will provide much-needed employment opportunities.