Circumpolar Newsings
Carl Bildt to visit Ottawa and Iqaluit 
(Sweden Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 14 May 2012) -- Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt will travel to Canada this week for political discussions primarily focusing on issues on the Arctic agenda. Mr Bildt will also visit the Arctic areas in Canada. Sweden currently holds the chair of the Arctic Council, which is a forum for cooperation between the five Nordic countries, Canada, Russia and the USA. The Arctic areas face many challenges and it is important to find a balance between environmental considerations and economic development for the Arctic to be able to develop. "Arctic region issues are a high priority for the Swedish Government and it is therefore important to discuss these issues with a central Arctic actor like Canada," says Mr Bildt. Sweden has held the chair of the Arctic Council since May 2011 and will pass on the Chairmanship to Canada at the foreign ministers' meeting in Kiruna in May 2013. On 16-17 May, Mr Bildt will be in Ottawa for talks with Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, Minister of National Defence Peter Mackay and Minister of Health and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency Leona Aglukkaq. On 17 May Mr Bildt will deliver a key policy speech at Carleton University under the heading 'Arctic Challenges and the Future Perspectives of Arctic Cooperation'. On 18-19 May Mr Bildt will visit Iqaluit in northern Canada, where he will meet Premier of Nunavut Eva Aariak and others.
Posted 16 May 2012; 4:08:24 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, International, May12, Sweden
Contaminated sites across Canada, including the Arctic, require clean up
(David McKie/CBC News via Eye on the Arctic, 8 May 2012) -- The federal government identified 142 contaminated sites as of last September where pollutants need to be contained or eliminated because of a long-term or immediate threat to human health or the environment. That's according to a CBC News analysis of the most recently available data compiled by the Treasury Board, one of the departments responsible for maintaining an inventory of sites. Much of the data is available online, but CBC News obtained more complete data under an access-to-information request. The 142 sites are only those that have reached step eight in a long process that federal departments and agencies must follow to assess and develop plans to clean up or contain damage posed by contaminants. Step eight is what's called "remediation/risk management strategy," which includes identifying the contaminants and whether they are present in soil or groundwater, and developing a plan to remove or treat the contaminants, as well as a detailed contingency plan in case the contaminants are released into the environment.
Posted 9 May 2012; 3:18:13 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Contaminants and pollution, Environment
Video: Russian Arctic village battles advancing sands
(Russia and India Report, 6 April 2012, running time 26:10) -- The tiny village of Shoina in Russia’s Arctic faces a daily battle against advancing sands, which appeared over 50 years ago and have been covering the land ever since.
Posted 9 May 2012; 2:08:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Communities, Environment, May12, Russia
Oil companies: The search for unconventional sources goes into the Arctic
(PennEnergy, 8 May 2012) -- The black gold rush on the roof of the world accelerated on Saturday. Norway's Statoil ASA (NYSE ADR: STO) signed a massive deal with Russian behemoth Rosneft in a venture that may require more than $100 billion over the next few decades. Specifically, the company aims to help Rosneft develop untapped oil resources in the Arctic, as Moscow struggles to gain a competitive advantage given declining oil production in Siberia. It's the third recent oil partnership for Rosneft. ... In the wake of Russia's slumping reserves and production in Siberia, the Kremlin has been looking for ways to incentivize producers to help Rosneft increase production. Tax breaks have been one way, but companies also want a little bit of insurance when they work with Moscow. Just last month, Exxon and Rosneft agreed to begin finalizing their initial $3.2 billion Arctic deal that would require about $200 billion for joint projects in the next decade alone, and the development of 10 ice-proof platforms for the Kara Sea that would cost about $15 billion each.
Posted 9 May 2012; 12:03:08 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Energy, International, May12, Oil and gas, mining, Russia
Fish factor: Tsunami debris just beginning to arrive
(Laine Welch/Capital City Weekly, 9 May 2012) -- Soccer balls, motorcycles, reminders of the massive tsunami in Japan a year ago are now appearing along Alaska's coastlines. "It's safe to say that tsunami debris is here," said Merrick Burden, director of the Juneau-based Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation. Since January the MCA has been tracking where and what kinds of debris that is coming ashore, and whether it is radioactive (none so far), at Kodiak, Yakutat, Sitka and Craig where the wreckage was first likely to hit. "What we're finding are wind-driven objects like buoys, Styrofoam, and large containers, some of which contain materials that are potentially toxic," Burden said. "We're finding drums full of things that we don't know what they are yet. So we're looking at a potential large-scale environmental problem, and what we're dealing with now is just the start of it." Debris has been found in every area they've looked, Burden said, and mysterious sludge is washing up on some beaches, apparently from opened containers. Just days ago, an enormous amount of floating debris was spotted off the southern reaches of Prince William Sound, making national headlines. But the worst is yet to come. "Next year is when we expect the larger debris that is driven by currents rather than wind," he said. "That should be comprised of entirely different types of materials, and it might even follow a different trajectory through the water and end up in different locations. Part of the problem is that we don't know what we're dealing with, and it looks bad. It's obviously tragic, and it looks like it's a pretty major environmental hazard as well."
Posted 9 May 2012; 11:28:47 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Contaminants and pollution, Disasters, etc., Environment, May12
Military exercises in Arctic reveal gap in US capabilities
(Mia Bennett/Eye on the Arctic via Alaska Dispatch, 7 May 2012) -- The Canadian Forces have just commenced one of their annual sovereignty exercises in the Arctic, called Operation Nunalivut. One-hundred fifty Canadian Forces personnel from the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Canadian Rangers are participating. This year, the exercises are taking place around Cornwallis Island and on the western portion of Devon Island in Nunavut. Sovereignty and search and rescue (SAR) training compose a large portion of the operations this year. Royal Canadian Navy divers dove under six feet of ice in Gascoyne Bay to simulate a medical rescue. Two Royal Canadian Air Force CC-138 Twin Otters also performed ski-landings to resupply a temporary camp in Viks Fiord. Another exercise helped Canada look into the dangerous past of the Arctic: sailors cut a hole into the ice with heated saws to submerge a remotely operated vehicle to survey the world's northernmost shipwreck, the HMS Breadalbane, which sank down into the murky depths in 1853. Participants are also testing new communications capabilities for Op Nunalivut. For the first time, rangers can communicate through a chat program that connects them both to headquarters in Resolute and Yellowknife, thousands of miles away in the Northwest Territories. ... Meanwhile, the U.S. is "behind the power curve regarding the Arctic" according to Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Bob Papp. The U.S. Naval War College's War Gaming Department recently carried out an operations game in which it found that the Navy is woefully unprepared and ill-equipped for activities in the Arctic. Without any heavy icebreakers, it must rely on other countries for that capability. Walter Berbrick, assistant research professor in the War Gaming Department, stated, "We have limited capability to sustain long-term operations in the Arctic due to inadequate icebreaking capability. The Navy finds itself entering a new realm as it relates to having to rely on other nations." Previously, the Navy mostly just had to rely on the Coast Guard, to whom it gave its last icebreaker, the Glacier, to the Coast Guard in 1966. That year, it decided to hand over all icebreaking operations.
Posted 8 May 2012; 10:52:50 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Infrastructure, transportation, May12, United States
UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples meets on land rights, food security
(Nunatsiaq News, 8 May 2012) -- This week and next, 500 representatives from the 370-million indigenous peoples who live around the world are meeting in New York at the United Nations for the 11th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples. The forum, which meets for 10 days each year, is a high-level advisory body that deals with indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, environment, education, health and human rights. Five years after the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted, a great deal remains to be done to realize the objectives contained in that landmark document, UN deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said May 7 at the opening of the 11th session of the forum. “We continue to hear stories of struggles and exploitation of indigenous peoples around the world. It is time for those stories to change,” Migiro said. “Let us instead move towards the day when indigenous peoples are heard, listened to and empowered.” Almost 2,000 indigenous participants from all regions of the world are taking part in the two-week session to advanced the rights and well-being of indigenous peoples.
Posted 8 May 2012; 10:47:06 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conferences, Indigenous Issues, International, May12
Bering Sea sees surprising record ice cover
(OurAmazingPlanet Staff/LiveScience.com via Yahoo! News, 7 May 2012) -- Arctic sea ice has persistently dwindled over the last three decades, yet sea ice set record highs in waters around Alaska this past winter. Ice in the Bering Sea not only covered more area than usual, it also stuck around longer, bucking the downward trend in sea ice cover observed since 1979, when satellite records for the region began. The Arctic as a whole had below-average sea ice cover during the 2011 to 2012 winter season. At its maximum, reached in mid-March, sea ice covered 5.88 million square miles (15.24 million square kilometers), the ninth lowest in the satellite record. Yet Alaskan waters were choked with ice. Sea ice cover in the Bering Sea was well above normal for much of the season, and reached a record-high extent in March 2012. In addition, ice surrounded the Pribilof Islands, tiny volcanic islands in the middle of the Bering Sea, for a record number of days this winter. On May 3, ice had surrounded St. Paul Island for 103 days, up from the record of 100 days, set in 2010. The record ice numbers were fueled by two main factors: low temperatures and strong winds from the north. Persistent winds pushed ice from the Arctic Ocean down toward the Bering Strait, which acted as a temporary dam, trapping the sea ice in a bottleneck. The sea ice continued to pile up, and the icy barrier eventually collapsed, allowing the trapped ice to surge southward into the Bering Sea. Alaska's mainland spent this last winter in the grip of bone-chilling low temperatures and record-high snowfalls, the result of cyclical climate conditions that kept much of the lower 48 states at record high temperatures, while plunging Alaska into a deep freeze that helped keep the ice frozen.
Posted 7 May 2012; 5:17:02 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Climate change and weather, May12, North Pacific
Bald eagle spotted in community in Canada's eastern Arctic
(CBC News via Eye on the Arctic, 7 May 2012) -- Whale Cove, a small predominantly Inuit community in Canada's eastern Arctic territory of Nunavut, is being ruffled by the rare sighting of a bald eagle. Elder Sam Arualak, who has spent most of his life in Whale Cove, said bald eagles are not common to the area. "No, not at all, you don't see them around here," he said in Inuktitut, the Inuit language dialect spoken in the community. "I think they usually belong along the treeline. It is rare to see them in Nunavut." According to residents, the large bird of prey has been feeding in the community of about 400 people along the western coast of Hudson Bay. An Environment Canada spokesperson confirmed the bird is a bald eagle and that it is outside its normal range. Mary-Jones Kriterdluk said the eagle's arrival has caused some excitement. She added it was the biggest bird she had ever seen and that many people were taking photos of it. "It is huge," she said in Inuktitut.
Posted 7 May 2012; 5:09:58 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and wildlife, Flora and Fauna, May12
Iceland to export mink meat to China?
(Iceland Review News, 7 May 2012) -- Mink meat might become a valuable byproduct for Icelandic fur farmers as Chinese importers have expressed interest in buying meat at mink farms in Skagafjörður, north Iceland. The local meat product company, KS in Sauðárkrókur, has received a number of requests from keen buyers in China in recent years, and at the end of May their representatives will visit the region, ruv.is reports. “I find it an exciting prospect. In mink farming we aim to feed the animals on excess material from fish and meat production […] so we find it very positive if the carcasses can be used for human consumption or other purposes,” said fur farming consultant Einar E. Einarsson. According to Einar, mink meat is a delicacy in Asia. He has tried it himself and found it tasty. There are 24 fur farms in Iceland and the industry is on the increase. Mink skins are sought after and the price has never been higher. The local production amounts to 160,000 skins per year while the mink carcasses are used for soil production or have simply been buried, some 150 tons per year. “A meeting has been scheduled where further information can be obtained on how much they’d like to pay for it and how the procedure would be. If it is doable, farmers are definitely willing to participate,” Einar concluded.
Posted 7 May 2012; 4:33:12 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic issues, Iceland, May12
Warming Arctic will affect south as well
(Ed Struzik/Times Colonist, 6 May 2012) -- University of Alberta scientist Andrew Derocher was in the High Arctic in late April getting a rare, first-hand glimpse of what the future of the Arctic might look like right around the time 3,000 researchers, policy-makers and indigenous leaders were gathered in Montreal at the International Polar Year 2012 conference to try to imagine the same thing. Derocher was on the sea ice catching and tagging polar bears off the coast of Victoria Island when Inuvialuit hunter Pat Epakohak hunted and killed a female polar bear that had two very unusual-looking cubs with her. "One of the cubs was very grizzly-bear-like and the other looked more like a polar bear," Derocher wrote in an email after getting a chance to look at the carcasses of the animals. "I guess we can expect more of these hybrids as the population of grizzly bears continues to grow in this part of the world." Up until about 20 years ago, sightings of grizzlies in the High Arctic were extremely rare, a quirk of nature, many biologists thought, that may have occurred because the bear walked the wrong way or strayed too far following mainland caribou that sometimes cross the sea ice to Arctic islands. No one imagined that hybrids such as the one Derocher saw would be part of the land or seascape. But that thinking began to change in recent years as more brown bears and a succession of other animals, such as red fox, coyotes, white-tailed deer, Pacific salmon and killer whales, began showing up in areas traditionally occupied by Arctic fox, Arctic wolves, caribou, Arctic char and beluga whales. Some of these animals, we now know, are also producing hybrids.
Posted 7 May 2012; 4:28:33 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Climate change and weather, May12, Research
After four decades leading the Inuit people, Mary Simon steps down
(Gloria Galloway/Globe and Mail, 1 May 2012) -- The woman who heads the organization representing Canada’s 55,000 Inuit will let someone else lead her people into their future. Mary Simon’s work on behalf of the aboriginal people of the North spans more than four decades. She was one of the negotiators for the Inuit when Canada’s Constitution was being crafted. In her six years as leader of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, she has witnessed the settling of the last major Inuit land claim, she has heard an apology from the Prime Minister for the treatment of the aboriginal children at residential schools, and she has seen increasing recognition of the Inuit title to the vast resources of Canada’s North. “There has never been a day when I didn’t like my job,” she said during a recent interview in her office in downtown Ottawa. But Ms. Simon, 64, has told The Globe and Mail she will not seek a third term when the ITK, which represents Inuit in 53 communities in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Northern Quebec and Labrador, holds its presidential election in early June. As she ponders the road forward, Ms. Simon knows much needs to be done. The progress made by the Inuit over the six years she has led their national organization has been “three steps forward and two steps back,” Ms. Simon said. ...
Posted 4 May 2012; 1:48:03 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Indigenous Issues, May12, People
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