Indigenous wildfire knowledge to be key part of new Arctic Council project

With wildfires intensifying around the North, an Arctic Council project is underway to better coordinate response among circumpolar countries as well as better understand Indigenous wildfire management and how it might be integrated into northern fire fighting strategies.

“It’s important to collaborate because you can see what’s been happening the last 10 years as fires in the North become more and more dangerous,” said Edward Alexander, a firefighter and co-chair of Gwich’in Council International, one of the Arctic Council’s six Indigenous permanent participants, and the group leading the project. 

“We have a real situation developing up here and it can’t just be Canada, the U.S. or Russia going at this problem on their own.”

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“A photo of the Siberian wildfires in the Krasnoyarsk region of Russia this July. Scientists say the fires are releasing record amounts of greenhouse gases. (Julia Petrenko/Greenpeace)”