Black gold sparks dream of autonomy

Greenland's fishers and hunters are against offshore oil development because of the fears of a spill. Photo / AP

One community is gripped by the great Arctic oil rush - the 57,000 people of Greenland.

Officially a self-governing dependency of Denmark, Greenland is increasingly chafing at the reins held in Copenhagen and, just as Scotland once did, is beginning to see the 20 billion barrels of oil thought to lie under the seas off its coasts as the fortune that might finance full independence.

The Greenlanders, 89 per cent of them Inuit (formerly called Eskimo) rely on fishing and tourism to survive, along with an annual grant from Denmark of nearly £400 million ($766 million).

But they realise that if a company such as Edinburgh's Cairn Energy strikes oil in the wells it is drilling in Baffin Bay off the west coast, there will be a new source of income which will revolutionise their lives.

Kuupik Kleist, Greenland's socialist Prime Minister and leader of the country's Inuit Ataqatigiit party, sees the oil as a way to diversify the economy and achieve economic independence.

"We claim our right to economic development," Mr Kleist said last month, "and we claim our right to be independent from former colonial powers."

He is aware of the environmental risks: "Of course, we are influenced by what happened in the Gulf of Mexico," he said. "We know that we are taking a huge responsibility on our shoulders. But the country is well-prepared."

Yet although many are welcoming the possibility of oil development, environmental concerns are also present.

Alfred Jakobsen, managing director of the country's Organisation of Fishermen and Hunters, says he is against offshore oil development, because "you cannot control the environmental conditions", and he worries about a spill's affect on his members' livelihoods.

- Independent