Biography

Sheila Watt-Cloutier currently resides in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada. She was born in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik (northern Quebec), and was raised traditionally in her early years before attending school in southern Canada and in Churchill, Manitoba. She is the former Chair of Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), the organization that represents internationally the 155,000 Inuit of Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Chukotka in the Far East of the Federation of Russia.

Ms. Watt-Cloutier was a political spokesperson for Inuit for over a decade. From 1995 to 1998, she was Corporate Secretary of Makivik Corporation. Defending the rights of Inuit was at the forefront of Ms. Watt-Cloutier's mandate since her election as President of ICC Canada in 1995 and re election in 1998. Ms. Watt-Cloutier was instrumental as a spokesperson for a coalition of northern Indigenous Peoples in the global negotiations that led to the 2001 Stockholm Convention banning the generation and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that contaminate the arctic food web. From 2002 to 2006 Ms. Watt Cloutier held the elected ICC Chair's position and has now left elected politics.

During the past years, Ms. Watt-Cloutier has alerted the world that Inuit will not become a footnote in the history of globalization by working through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to defend Inuit against the impacts of climate change. On December 7, 2005, she filed a petition with the Commission as an urgent message from Inuit "sentinels" to the rest of the world on global warming's already dangerous impacts. Most recently, on March 1, 2007, she testified before the Commission during their extraordinary first hearing on the links between climate change and human rights.

In 2005, she was honored with the United Nations Champion of the Earth Award, the Sophie Prize from Norway and the inaugural Northern Medal by the outgoing Governor General of Canada, Adrienne Clarkson. In 2006, Global Green, USA, selected Sheila for its International Environmental Leadership Award, and in June she received both the Citation of Lifetime Achievement from the Canadian Environment Awards and the Earth Day Canada International Environment Award. Also in June, the University of Winnipeg conferred Ms. Watt-Cloutier with an Honorary Doctorate of Law. Sheila was made an Officer in the Order of Canada in December 2006. She is also a mentor for two Ph.D scholars under the program of the Trudeau Foundation. In February, 2007, she was publicly nominated jointly with Al Gore for the Nobel Peace Prize by two Norwegian Members of Parliament.

Ms. Watt-Cloutier sums up her work by saying: "I do nothing more than remind the world that the Arctic is not a barren land devoid of life but a rich and majestic land that has supported our resilient culture for millennia. Even though small in number and living far from the corridors of power, it appears that the wisdom of the land strikes a universal chord on a planet where many are searching for sustainability."