Norway’s Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store opened last week’s international conference on managing the Arctic with a plea to co-operate peacefully as the five nations that border the Arctic begin to vie for the lucrative resources that lie under the seabed. Using the catchphrase “High North, low tension”, Store was optimistic at the summit in the northern Norwegian town of Tromso.
The main focus of this year’s Arctic summit was the rapid melting of the Arctic’s ice. The AFP reports that the Arctic region holds up to 30 percent of the planet’s undiscovered natural gas reserves and perhaps 13 percent of undiscovered oil reserves. These resources will finally become accessible as the Arctic ice cap melts away.
The race to claim these potential riches has been accompanied by a similar increase in military activity in the region. NATO plans to play a bigger role in the region, and Russia has been increasingly vocal about its rights to deploy military units in the Arctic.
Store told reporters: “We will as responsible governments and coastal states be able to manage the challenges and opportunities of this region without gliding into conflict and negative competition. We have every opportunity to prove wrong those who say that this is bound to be a regional conflict of competing interests. It need not be that way; we can do that very differently.”
Good day:
I have worked for 37 years at the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada on Inuit, Arctic and Circumpolar Affairs. The issue of sovereignty is a major issue which is the subject of serious discussions within Canada and in other circumpolar countries.
One element that should not be ignored is the research aspect related to climate change and the possible opening of the Northwest Passage. A lot of research projects and activities took place during the International Polar Year.
I would like to bring to your attention a unique research centre run and managed by the Inuit of Nunavik, which is located in Kuuujjuaq, regional capital of Nunavik, territory located in the northern part of the Province of Quebec, Canada. The Makivik Corporation (www.makivik.org) represents the 10,000 Inuit living in 14 communities along the coast of this vast territory of 507,000 sq km (size of France).
Through the years, the Inuit have been able to build and develop a major research centre (the Nunavik Research Centre) which does research in toxicology, parasitology, biology and cartography. It has a staff of 9 people including the first Inuit biologist who graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Québec.
I would suggest you do an article on this unique research centre, the only one of its kind in the whole Eastern Arctic of Canada. The Centre has developed professional and research collaboration with governments, other Inuit organizations, research organizations and universities within Canada and internationally including for example Norway.
To obtain furthern info. on NRC, I suggest you visit the following 2 sites: http://www.makivik.org and Nunavikportal.ca
DONAT SAVOIE
donatsavoie@hotmail.com
225 de la Galene,
CITY OF GATINEAU, PROVINCE OF QUEBEC, CANADA
J8Z 3N7