Receding ice sheets and pollution from industry are causing deaths in the Arctic, religious leaders meeting in Greenland learned during a study of the environmental challenges facing the region, writes Alex Kirby.

In a symposium organised by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, an Alaskan Inuit speaker recalled the loss of friends who had fallen to their deaths through ice that has thinned as temperatures have risen.

Scientists also explained that Greenlanders, Russians and Canadians were ingesting high levels of pollutants. Dangerous chemicals used in industries in Europe, North America and Asia were carried north on winds and by the sea, and accumulated in the food chain. 

The symposium, "The Arctic: Mirror of Life", is the seventh the 67-year-old Patriarch has held on threatened rivers or seas in acknowledgement of the pressure on the world's water sources. 

Pope Benedict XVI sent a message of "fervent solidarity" to the symposium.