To boost co-operation, Greenland hosts circumpolar states in Ilulissat

A trip in the ice fiord is on the agenda for the big meeting that Ilulissat, Greenland is hosting for leaders from the Arctic Council and its Indigenous participants. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DISKOLINE.DK)

Today and tomorrow, the spotlight is on a big circumpolar meeting in Ilulissat, the coastal Greenlandic town whose scenic iceberg-strewn fiord is a World Heritage Site.

That’s where Vivian Motzfeldt, the newly appointed Greenlandic minister responsible for foreign affairs, and the Danish minister for foreign affairs, Anders Samuelsen, are hosting a two-day high level meeting on the 10th anniversary of the Ilulissat Declaration.

In that declaration, signed in 2008, the five nation-states with Arctic coastlines—Denmark, the United States, Russia, Canada and Norway—vowed to act responsibly on future developments in the Arctic Ocean and maintain peaceful co-operation in the Arctic.

While the signatories of the Ilulissat Declaration did not include Finland, Sweden and Iceland, that’s changed this time. Representatives of the other member states of the Arctic Council, as well as Indigenous organizations that participate in the Arctic Council, will also be in Ilulissat to focus on Arctic co-operation.

“Greenland wishes, through our participation in Arctic co-operation, to actively contribute to the conservation of the Arctic as a peaceful region. The Arctic must continue to be an area where the parties through international cooperation and dialogue achieve peaceful economic and sustainable development for the benefit of the people of the Arctic,” Motzfeldt said in a news release.

Ministers from the Farøe Islands and Sweden, Arctic ambassador-level officials from the U.S., Canada, Finland and Iceland, as well as deputy ministers from Russia and Norway are expected to attend the declaration’s 10th anniversary celebrations in Ilulissat.

Their program includes:

• Discussions on the importance of the Ilulissat Declaration and different aspects of Arctic co-operation.

• A session on the perspectives of the Arctic Council’s new scientific research agreement, which will come into force May 23.

• A trip through the Ilulissat fiord to the village of Ilimanaq. In Ilimanaq, the VIPs are likely to tour the Ilimanaq Lodge, which includes a restaurant in a restored merchant’s house, one of Greenland’s oldest buildings, and take in a spectacular view from the lodge.

• A cultural event at the unveiling of memorial plaque for the 10th anniversary of the Ilulissat Declaration.

The signing of the Arctic fisheries agreement was initially to have been part of the official agenda for the Ilulissat gathering.

But now, all the key ministers needed to sign it into effect will not be in attendance.

That agreement, which won’t be binding until all parties sign it, deals with fish stocks in the most northerly international waters—including those off Nunavut’s Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg islands—which lie in the so-called “donut hole” at the top of the world.

These international waters, which lie 200 miles off any coastline and so are beyond the control of any Arctic nation, are still unfished.

While it’s still uncertain whether there are any fish there, some observers fear that a lack of regulation in the central Arctic Ocean could eventually lead to trawling and potential over-fishing in those waters.