Indigenous peoples talk climate change at Alaska summit

From unpredictable weather to disappearing wildlife, dealing with the effects of climate change is the focus of an international summit of aboriginal peoples starting Monday in Anchorage, Alaska.

Delegates at the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change, hosted by the Inuit Circumpolar Council, will develop a global action plan that it will submit to the United Nations for consideration.

"It is really the first opportunity that we've ever had, as indigenous people worldwide, to gather together," Patricia Corchran, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, told CBC News before the summit.

"It was extremely important because of the guidance that needs to come from indigenous peoples."

Among the estimated 200 to 300 summit delegates is Lance Nukon of the Vuntut Gwich'in First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon, who said he has seen the effects of climate change first hand.

"I really notice the change in seasonal weather patterns. It's not predictable anymore. The freeze and thaw [are] just later and earlier every year," Nukon said.

"We're finding now, especially around Old Crow, we haven't seen a caribou all winter and nobody can get anything. There's a lot of things changing, and you just kind have to adapt to it as it comes."

Nukon said he hopes this week's summit is about more than finding ways to cope with climate change, and includes discussions on ways to preserve indigenous ways of life.

Summit organizers hope to have an action plan drafted by the time the summit wraps up on Friday, and then present the document to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.

"It's always important for indigenous peoples from all parts of the world to come together and unite, and have some common views and positions on the issue itself and their own anlaysis and their world view on why this thing is happening," said Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.