Шейла Ватт-Клутье: Защитница Арктики и прав инуитов

Inuk environmentalist

Sheila Watt Cloutier (born 2 December 1953) is a Canadian Inuk activist. She has been a political representative for Inuit at the regional, national and international levels, most recently as International Chair for the Inuit Circumpolar Council (formerly the Inuit Circumpolar Conference). Watt Cloutier has worked on a range of social and environmental issues affecting Inuit, most recently, persistent organic pollutants and global warming. She has received numerous awards and honours for her work, and has been featured in a number of documentaries and profiled by journalists from all media. Watt Cloutier sits as an adviser to Canada's Ecofiscal Commission. She is also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Sheila Watt Cloutier was born in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, Northern Quebec, Canada. Her mother was known as a skillful healer and interpreter throughout Nunavik, and her father was an officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. For the first ten years of her life, Sheila was raised traditionally, travelling on the land by dog sled, before she was sent away for school in Nova Scotia and Churchill, Manitoba in the Canadian Indian residential school system.

In the mid 1970s, she worked for the Ungava Hospital as an Inuktitut translator and strove to improve education and health conditions. From 1991 to 1995, she worked as a counsellor in the review process of the education system of Northern Quebec. This work led to the 1992 report on the educational system in Nunavik, Silaturnimut The Pathway to Wisdom. Watt Cloutier also contributed significantly to the youth awareness video Capturing Spirit: The Inuit Journey.

Watt Cloutier has been a political representative for Inuit for over a decade. From 1995 to 1998, she was Corporate Secretary of Makivik Corporation, the Canadian Inuit land claim organization established for Northern Quebec (Nunavik) under the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. In 1995, she was elected President of Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) Canada, and re elected in 1998. In 2002, she was elected International Chair of ICC, a position she would hold until 2006. Although the IACHR decided against hearing her petition, the Commission invited Watt Cloutier to testify with her international legal team (including lawyers from Earthjustice and the Center for International Environmental Law) at their first hearing on climate change and human rights on 1 March 2007.

Her book The Right to Be Cold, about the effects of climate change on Inuit communities, was published by Allen Lane Penguin Random House in 2015. Her memoir The Right to Be Cold: One Woman's Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet (2015) was short listed for Canada Reads, where it was championed by musician Chantal Kreviazuk. Activist Naomi Klein reviewed the books for the Globe and Mail, calling it "courageous and revelatory". "The Inuit Journey Towards a POPs Free World." Northern Lights Against POPs: Combating Toxic Threats in the Arctic. Ed. David Leonard Downie and Terry Fenge. Montreal: McGill Queen's University Press, 2003. 256–267. "Don’t Abandon the Arctic to Climate Change." The Globe and Mail 24 May 2006: A19. "ICC responds to last week’s editorial." Nunatsiaq News 9 June 2006: Opinion. "Nunavut must think big, not small, on polar bears." Nunatsiaq News 19 January 2007: Opinion. "The Strength to Go Forward." CBC: This I Believe 23 May 2007. "Canada's Way." The Ottawa Citizen 29 August 2007. "Ozone treaty offers insurance against climate change." The Globe and Mail 6 September 2007: A19.

All cities in Canada unless noted.

Global Environment Award, World Association of Non Governmental Organizations Washington, D. C., United States (on behalf of ICC Canada)

Watt Cloutier has a daughter, a son, and a grandson. Prior to returning to Kuujjuaq, she resided in Iqaluit, Nunavut for 15 years.