Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) – an UN organisation founded in 1945. FAO have made special attention on developing rural areas, which are home to 70 percent of the world’s poor and hungry people. FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and debate policy. FAO is also a source of knowledge and information, and is helping developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices in order to ensure good nutrition for all.
Food Chain – the feeding of one organism upon another in a sequence of food transfers is known as a food chain. Another definition is the chain of transfer of energy (which typically comes from the sun) from one organism to another.
Food Webs – in an ecosystem there are many different food chains and many of these are cross-linked to form a food web. Ultimately all plants and animals in an ecosystem are part of this complex food web.
Fossil – any remains or trace of animals or plants from an earlier geological age.
Fossil fuel – mainly oil, coal and gas which have been formed under pressure of fossils.
Fourth World Indigenous peoples.
Fowl – any of the larger birds used for food.
Freon – non-flammable derivatives of methane or ethane used as propellants in aerosol products and in refrigerants.
Frost smoke Arctic haze.
Fungi – mushrooms, moulds and lichens. Biological classification.
Fur Institute of Canada – the main national non-profit organisation for fur interests in Canada, established in 1983. The organisation has membership from all segments of the fur industry, from indigenous trappers to fur dressers and retailers. Furthermore it includes the government and conservation associations. The overall mission of the Fur Institute of Canada is to promote the sustainable and wise use of Canada's fur resources.
G
Game – wild animals, mammals or birds hunted for use as food.
Game cropping – the culling of game animals for human consumption.
Game law – a law enacted for the preservation of animals by restricting the number and kinds of animals that may be taken in certain periods of the year.
GATT – General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). World Trade Organization (WTO).
GCI Gwich’in Council International (GCI).
General election – elections may take place as nation- or state-wide elections.
Genetic material – any material of plant, animal, microbial or other origin containing functional units of heredity.
Genetic resources – the genetic material of actual or potential value. A Country of origin of genetic resources is the country, which possesses those genetic resources in in-situ conditions. A Country providing genetic resources is the country supplying genetic resources collected from in-situ sources, including populations of both wild and domesticated species, or taken from ex-situ sources, which may or may not have originated in that country.
Geneva Convention Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP).
Genocide – the systematic killing of a whole national or ethnic group. Frequently Indigenous peoples have been victims of physical genocide. This may have been direct in the form of massacres by those invading Indigenous territories, or indirect in the results of new diseases introduced by the colonisers. A different type of genocide is the cultural suppression of Indigenous Peoples’ cultures by assimilation into the mainstream culture of a given country.
Genome – is the entire hereditary message of an organism contained in all of its genes, which are present in nearly all of the organism’s cells.
Genus – in biology, it is usually meaning the major sub-division of a family or subfamily in the classification of animals and plants, usually consisting of more than one species.
Gillnet – a net set upright in the water to catch fish and/or seals.
GIUK – means the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap.
Glacial – is the presence of ice in extensive masses.
Glacial deposit – gravel, sand and clay etc. transported and deposited by a glacier.
Glacial drainage channel – melt-water channel cut by glacial melt-water.
Glacier – accumulation of snow, ice, air pockets, water and rock debris. The smallest alpine glaciers form in mountain valleys and are referred to as valley glaciers. Larger glaciers can cover an entire mountain or mountain chain. This type is known as an ice cap, and feed outlet glaciers, tongues of ice that extend into valleys below. Outlet glaciers are formed by the movement of ice from a polar ice cap, or an ice cap from mountainous regions, to the sea. The largest glaciers are continental ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. The volume of ice is so large that if the Greenland ice sheet melted, it would cause sea levels to rise some 6 meters / 20 feet all around the world. If the Antarctic ice sheet melted, sea levels would rise up to 65 meters / 210 feet. Plateau glaciers resemble ice sheets, but on a much smaller scale.
Glaciology – the scientific study of ice in all its forms.
Global warming Climate Change.
Globalization – the international integration, or unification that is a process, which includes a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces.
GMT – Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Prime Meridian.
Government – various types of government: Despotism – rule by a single leader, all his or her subjects are considered his or her slaves. Dictatorship – rule by an individual who has full power over the country. Oligarchy – rule by a small group of people who share similar interests or family relations. Plutocracy – a government composed of the wealthy class. Democracy – rule by a government where the people as a whole hold the power. It may be exercised by them (direct democracy), or through representatives chosen by them (representative democracy). Theocracy – rule by a religious elite. Anarchy – lack of government. The head of government have various titles: Prime Minister, Premier, Chancellor or Minister-president. Head of State.
Great Greenland A/S – with the help of a number of famous designers, Great Greenland A/S in Qaqortoq has succeeded in re-establishing the market for seal furs, not just in Denmark. The company buys around 80,000 – 100,000 sealskin every year.
Green Cross International and the Global Solar Fund – an initiative of Mikhail Gorbachev, who is Chairman of the Board of Green Cross International. This organization is now planning to establish a 50 billion dollar Global Solar Fund, which shall be used in finding new ways in energy supplies in order to minimize the global warming.
Green movement – a broad based social movement all over the Western World whose prime concerns are ecological issues, such as preservation of wildlife, concern over pollution and the like. During the 1980’s Green parties had significant success in several European countries.
Greenhouse effect – the progressive and gradual warming of the earth’s atmospheric temperature, caused by the insulating effect of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases that have proportionately increased in the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect disturbs the way the Earth’s climate maintains the balance between incoming and outgoing energy by allowing short-wave radiation from the sun to penetrate through to warm the earth, but preventing the resulting long-wave radiation from escaping back into the atmosphere.
Greenhouse gases – many greenhouse gases occur naturally, such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Other greenhouse gases such as hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs), per fluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) result exclusively from human industrial processes. Human activities also add significantly to the level of naturally occurring greenhouse gases: Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere by the burning of solid waste, wood and wood products, and fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal). Nitrous oxide emissions occur during various agricultural and industrial processes, and when solid waste or fossil fuels are burned. Methane is emitted when organic waste decomposes, whether in landfills or in connection with livestock farming. Methane emissions also occur during the production and transport of fossil fuels.
Greenland – Kalaallit Nunaat, the “Land of the Greenlandic people”, is the indigenous people’s own name for the country the outside world refer to as Greenland. The name Greenland dates back to Eric the Red, who was trying to market the newly discovered land west of Iceland in the 980s. Greenland is the largest island on Earth. The country forms part of the North American continent. From Cape Farewell in the south to the world’s northernmost landmass, Odak Island, there is a distance of 2,670 kilometres. Measured across, the island stretches 1,050 kilometres at its widest point. Out of Greenland’s 2,175,600 square kilometres, 1,833,900 are covered by inland ice, corresponding to 85% of the country – the ice-free area only covers a total of 341,700 square kilometres. The Central region, where the population is densest, comprises the municipalities of Paamiut, Nuuk, Maniitsoq, Kangaatsiaq and Sisimiut. This region is the country’s financial centre. Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, is home to the Greenland Parliament, Landstinget, and the Home Rule Administration, the university, the college of education and a number of other institutions of higher education. The capital also hosts the headquarters of the country’s banks and the majority of the major companies in Greenland. With its large Atlantic Quay, Nuuk is the most important port in Greenland. Sisimiut, Greenland’s second largest town, is home to a number of large commercial enterprises. Its most important industry is fishing – for prawns, crabs and cod in particular. Royal Greenland’s largest fish factory, one of the most advanced plants in the world, is located in Sisimiut. The Disko region, which comprises the municipalities of Aasiaat, Qasigiannguit, Qeqertarsuaq and Ilulissat, is home to approximately a quarter of the country’s population. Ilulissat is the third largest town in Greenland. In recent years, the town has become the commercial centre of Northern Greenland. Fishing, particularly for prawns, Greenland halibut and crabs, is the primary trade, and the town is home to several local fish factories. The economic expansion of the area has also attracted several large construction companies to Ilulissat. The North and East Greenland region comprises the municipalities of Uummannaq, Upernavik, Qaanaaq, Ammassalik and Ittoqqortoormiit. Some 20% of Greenland’s population, most of who live in this region, depend largely on the hunting of marine mammals and some fishing. The South region comprises the municipalities of Nanortalik, Qaqortoq and Narsaq. Agriculture, especially sheep farming, is widespread in this region. Fishing also plays a major role as do a number of other production activities, including gold mining. Qaqortoq is the fourth largest town in Greenland and the largest in the South region. It is the financial centre of this area having a large fishing fleet and a fish factory that processes fantail prawns.
Greenland Home Rule – in 1953, Greenland’s status as a Danish colony was terminated and the country became an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark. At the same time, the Danish constitution was extended to serve Greenland, which, as a result, has two members in the Danish Parliament. The Greenland department, which falls under the Danish Prime Minister’s office, is responsible for Home Rule affairs and for coordinating the duties of other ministries. Greenland has had its own Representation in Copenhagen since the establishment of the Home Rule. The Home Rule was introduced in 1979, and consists of the parliament (Landstinget), the government (Landsstyret) and the Administration. The Greenlandic parliament consists of 31 members. After the election in 2005, four parties were represented: Siumut (Social Democrats), Inuit Ataqatigiit (Socialist), Atassut (Liberals), Demokraterne (Social-Liberals) and one independent member. In March 2003 a commission submitted a report on the future relationship between Denmark and Greenland, and upon internal political discussions, a joint commission of Danish and Greenlandic politicians have discussed a future for Greenland with an expanded Home Rule or Self-Government. Landstinget passes most laws in Greenland. One of the exceptions is the criminal law, which is a matter for the Danish Parliament. The police, the judicial system and the prison service are all a matter for the Danish Parliament, but are administered by the Ministry of Justice.
Greenland Hunters and Fishers Association (KNAPK) Kalaallit Nunaanni Aalisartut Piniartullu Kattuffiat (KNAPK).
Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) – an international project with participation of eight European countries, Denmark, Switzerland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Belgium. GRIP belongs under the European Science Foundation, which has 21 member-states in Europe. The eight participating countries and the EU financed GRIP. Over 3 years (1989-92) GRIP drilled an ice-core of more than 3,000 metres, representing from top to bottom more than 250,000 years of climate-history.
Greenland Ice Sheet – a vast body of ice covering 1.71 million km² or roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice sheet is almost 2,400 kilometres long in a north-south direction, and its greatest width is 1,100 kilometres at a latitude of 77° N, near its northern margin. The mean altitude of the ice is 2,135 meters. The thickness is more than 3 km at its thickest point. It is not the only ice mass of Greenland - isolated glaciers and small ice caps cover between 76,000 and 100,000 square kilometres around the periphery.
Greenland Sea – a sea east of North East Greenland, bordered to the east by Svalbard and the Norwegian Sea, and to the south by Iceland. The coastal waters have a maximum depth of 245/804 meters/feet, but in the Greenland Basin, the depths reach more than 3,000/9,842 meters/feet. The coastal waters can only be navigated to a limited extent from the beginning of July until the middle of September.
Greenland Seafishery and Export Association (APK) Avataasiutinik Piginneqatigiiffiit Katuffiat (APK).
Greenlandic – Greenlanders refer to their language, Greenlandic, as Kalaallisut. The language is a part of the Inuit Languages. Greenlandic is the official language in Greenland, and spoken by approximately 50,000 people, but Danish is taught at an advanced level in schools. Also other foreign languages are taught. The inhabitants of both North Greenland and East Greenland have their own distinct languages within the Inuit language group. Eskimo-Aleut languages.
Greenpeace – an international organisation of environmentalists and animal protectionists, founded in 1972. Greenpeace has national organisations throughout the world. The organisation was from the beginning very actively protesting against French nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean. A Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior was bombed by a French government agency in Auckland, New Zealand in 1985. One person was killed. Greenpeace has an ongoing controversy with the indigenous peoples of the Arctic due to their whaling policy. On sealing, Greenpeace declared in 1977 its opposition to any kind of sealing – endangered or not. Greenpeace, Denmark has throughout the years with some success campaigned for a more differentiated view on sealing and has defended the indigenous sealing in Greenland. Indigenous Survival International (ISI).
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) Prime Meridian.
GRIP Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP).
Grønlandsmedicinsk Selskab – the Danish scientific society that advances the research and education, which is focussing on the health and wellbeing of the peoples living in Greenland and other regions of the Arctic. The society was founded in 1970, and its office is at Statens Institut for Folkesundhed, Copenhagen.
Gulf of Alaska – a gulf south of Alaska, east of the North American main land.
Gwich’in Council International (GCI) is representing the Gwich’in in Canada and USA. GCI was established as a non-profit organisation in 1999 by the Gwich’in Tribal Council in Inuvik, North West Territories of Canada (NWT), to ensure all regions of the Gwich’in Nation in the NWT, Yukon (Canada) and Alaska (USA) were represented at the Arctic Council, as well as to play an active and significant role in the development of policies that relate to the Circumpolar Arctic. The founding members of GCI include six Alaskan Gwich’in communities (Arctic Village, Chalkyitsik, Fort Yukon, Birtch, Circle and Venetie) two Gwich’in representative bodies in Canada (Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation representing Vuntut Gwich’in in Old Crow, Yukon, and Gwich’in Tribal Council representing four communities in the Beaufort Delta region in the NWT). In total the Gwich’in Council International founding members represent approximately 9,000 indigenous peoples of Gwich’in descent. The GCI Secretariat rotates between the Gwich’in Tribal Council in Inuvik, NWT and the Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon.
H
Habitat – the living environment of an individual or a group. Habitats are usually referred to as the kind of places where animals live or plants grow. To be considered a good habitat it must have four things: room to roam, food sources, water, and shelter.
Harpoon – traditional Inuit hunting weapon. European whalers also used harpoons.
Haze Arctic haze.
Head of State – there are various titles and roles of the head of state according to the type of rule. In two of the Scandinavian constitutional monarchies Norway and Sweden the head of state is a king, and in the third constitutional monarchy Denmark it is a queen. The two republics Finland and Iceland have presidents. Canada, which is a part of the British Commonwealth, has the British queen, represented by the Governor General, as head of state. Common to Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden is that their heads of state have no direct executive role, but mainly plays a symbolic role on behalf of the country. Russia is a semi-presidential republic with a president and a prime minister, both active participants in the administration of the country. U.S.A. is a presidential republic where the president is both the head of state and the head of government. Government.
Heavy metals – the generic term for metals with the same or larger gravity as iron (Fe). Other heavy metals are Cobalt (Co), Nickel (Ni), Copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), Gallium (Ga), Germanium (Ge), Rutenium (Ru), Rhodium (Rh), Palladium (Pd), Silver (Ag), Cadmium (Cd), Indium (In), Tin (Sn), Antimon (Sb), Osmium (Os), Iridum (Ir), Platinum (Pt), Gold (Au), Mercury (Hg), Tellurium (Te), Lead (Pb), Vismuth (Bi), and Polonium (Po). Some heavy metals are considered very dangerous to the environment.
Herbivore – an animal that eats plants or parts of plants.
Heritage – culture or tradition handed down from one’s ancestors or the past.
Hibernation – related to animals sleeping most of the winter, only waking once or twice.
Hierarchy – the division among a group of animals, which establishes who is the leader and who are the followers.
High Arctic tundra – the most northerly sector of the tundra, distinguished by a lack of complete vegetation cover.
High North Alliance – an organisation representing the interests of the fishermen, whalers and sealers of the Western Nordic areas, i.e. Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Norway. The objective of High North Alliance is to protect the rights of whalers, sealers and fishermen to harvest renewable marine resources in accordance with the principles of sustainable management. The organisation is based in Reine on Lofoten (Norway).
Home Rule – the kind of local self-government or autonomy practised in the Kingdom of Denmark. The two autonomous areas of Denmark have achieved Home Rule, the Faroe Islands in 1948 and Greenland in 1979. Greenland Home Rule. Faroe Islands Home Rule.
Homo sapiens – Latin for the knowing person. This classification for humans was developed by Carl von Linné in 1758 in his Systema Naturae, where he developed the two-name classification system to classify more than 10,000 animals and plants. The only thing he noted about the human species was nosce te ipsum – know yourself.
Household – a unit composed of a family, a group of individuals living together, or a person living alone.
Hudson Bay – a large inland sea of 1.23 million square kilometres in North East Canada. A smaller offshoot of the bay is James Bay that lies to the south. The bay has access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Hudson Strait, between Baffin Island and Labrador.
Human beings – many of the world’s people have divided the world in such a manner that one’s own ethnic group belongs to the category of human beings. The “others” therefore are not considered to be real human beings. This self-understanding is reflected in the definition of the ethnic group that one belongs to. For example, the word Inuit (Eskimos) means human beings. The same is true for several of Russia’s indigenous peoples. When one belongs to “human beings”, i.e. the people that possess the true culture and values, it means that at the same time the people may identify themselves with specific land areas, holy places as well as their gods. That which separates one ethnic group from another can include language, culture, history, but primarily it is how the group looks upon itself in relation to other groups. Nobody can say for sure how this self-identification came into being, but it goes back much further than to the time when the Europeans arrived. This is known from the myths that have been passed down from one generation to the next for thousands of years.
Human Rights – the protection of Human Rights has been an important issue of the UN since it was founded in 1945. At the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was passed by the member states unanimously. Human rights were an important issue in the work of CSCE. Over the years a wide range of human rights issues have been addressed, the rights of indigenous peoples was subject to the establishment of the WGIP.
Humane killing – many animal welfare organisations have focused on killing techniques. The main purpose is to reduce the death-length and the time of suffering of the game. In whaling, a penethrite harpoon has been introduced. In trapping new traps like the Conibear trap, a quick-kill device, have been introduced.
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