The Arctic leaders were in Brussels on a visit aimed at keeping the pressure on European Union countries to fight climate change by cutting greenhouse cases and raising awareness about global warming.

"There is some tough sledding ahead to make the rest of the cuts in greenhouse gases that will be needed", said Gary Harrison, a tradition chief for Chickaloon Village in Alaska.

"That's why we came, to let people know that climate change is already having an effect in the Arctic, and it will soon be affecting them here," he added.

Harrison, who also chairs an organization representing the Athabaskan people of Alaska and Canada, said he had personally witnessed the effects of climate change in receding glaciers and the early melting of snow in the spring.

Global warming has also led to the arrival of mosquitoes bearing infectious diseases in the far north.

In Russia and Canada, authorities are growing increasingly concerned about forest-fires while people reindeer herders are finding their livelihood increasingly under threat.

In Scandinavia, more frequent rains in the winter causing sheets of ice to develop top of snow, causing animals to die of hunger because they can not reach the grass underneath.

"We are not asking for sympathy," said Larisa Abrutina, vice-president of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North.

"We are asking each country in the world to examine if it is truly doing its part to slow climate change."

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