Addressing NATO’s Arctic Intelligence Gap: Indigenous-Led Environmental Monitoring

Aug 8, 2026 | Olly Griesbach
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The warming Arctic is one of the greatest sources of vulnerability for Canadian security and defence, and yet the communities best positioned to generate the knowledge required to protect it are functionally absent from NATO’s plan, reflecting a profound intelligence gap. For generations, Inuit hunters, harvesters, and land stewards across the Canadian North have accumulated a robust body of knowledge about the Arctic landscape and its ecosystems. From centuries of tracking shifts in sea ice and the timing of seasons to monitoring the health of marine animals and coastal ecosystems, Northern Indigenous populations arguably possess some of the world’s most detailed long-baseline environmental intelligence about the Arctic.