Thursday 1 July, the final day of the Inuit Circumpolar Council’s general assembly in Nuuk, Aqqaluk Lynge was elected new International Chair. He and the Greenlandic branch of the organization took over the chairmanship from James Stotts and the Alaskan branch.

The election of Mr. Lynge as ICC Chair for the next 4-year term came as no surprise. Mr. Lynge has been leading ICC Greenland for many years. It is the second time that he is leading the international organization. The first time that he served as ICC President was from 1997 to 2002.

The agenda of the final day of the general assembly also comprised a revision of the ICC founding charter as well as amendments of its bylaws. A proposal to reduce the number of general assembly delegates from the Chukotkan chapter of ICC from 18 to 12 got approved.

As its last performance the outgoing ICC executive council adopted the Nuuk Declaration, the official outcome of the 11th general assembly. The declaration duly references the Arctic Council and ICC permanent participant status therein, the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, as well as the organization’s own Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Sovereignty in the Arctic.

Finally, the new ICC executive council got presented, albeit ”new” is perhaps not the right expression as familiar faces make up the council. One exception is Kirt Ejesiak who has been elected Vice President and one of the two ICC Canada members of the Executive Council. As noted by former Chair Jimmy Stotts, Kirt Ejesiak is not only new, but even young blood. His election for the executive council was met with enthusiastic applause from the people assembled in the cultural hall of Nuuk city.

Unique Arctic ecosystems, sea ice, tundra, thermokarst ponds, and permafrost peatlands have been disappearing over the recent decades. Consequently, the species for whom they serve as habitats have declined.  Indeed, ultimately, it is the Arctic as such that is at stake. The changes in Arctic Biodiversity, notwithstanding their global repercussions, are hugely challenging to indigenous and other Arctic residents, to their livelihood, and to their sense of identity.

Such, by and large, is the overall message of the “Arctic Biodiversity Trends 2010: Selected Indicators of Change” that was presented at a press conference held in conjunction with the recent Arctic Council Deputy Ministers’ meeting at the premises of the Danish Foreign Ministry.

The report is being published by the Arctic Council Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) working group. It intends to present a snapshot of the Arctic as well as the main trends with regard to the biological diversity of the region.

The report takes off from 7 key findings regarding present and anticipated impacts on Arctic biodiversity that pervade all of the 22 indicators – ranging from polar bears to indigenous linguistic diversity!  The report, among other things, will serve as CAFF and Arctic Council input to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity CoP10 to be held in Japan later this year.

The report also serves as a sort of layman forerunner of a complete scientific assessment of Arctic biodiversity that will emerge from the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA), currently in preparation under the auspices of the CAFF working group.

According to CAFF, the report has started to receive good press coverage and has so far been accessed and downloaded by people in 36 countries. The ABA people are now in the process of arranging for the side event to launch the report at the upcoming IPY conference in Oslo on June 10th.  At this event they also plan to have a panel discussion on Arctic biodiversity.

Following the 27 May Deputy Ministerial, Friday 28 may saw yet another innovation on the Arctic Council schedule as the first ever Information Day of the Arctic Council (IDAC) was successfully carried through. According to the plan of the Senior Arctic Officials, IDACs are to take place every second year.

On this occasion, in addition to the SAOs, Permanent Participants, Working Groups, and Observers of the Arctic Council participated. Paradoxically, the media were not invited as, apparently, the purpose of the IDAC is to improve communication within the council itself. In particular, that is, between SAOs and Permanent Participants, on the one hand, and, on the other, Working Groups and Observers.

The first half of the Information Day was filled by presentations by each of the 6 Arctic Council working groups, the second half by presentations made by Observer States and organizations, as well as by Ad Hoc Observers. Adhering to the IDAC concept, Arctic Council member states and Permanent Participants remained listeners and commentators.

All in all, the Information Day offered an excellent overview of activities, priorities, strategic plans, interconnections, -relations, and –dependencies of, as well as synergies among all 4 categories of stakeholders inside as well as outside of the Arctic Council.

Questions about funding for Permanent Participants’ participation and contribution was raised on a couple of occasions, as was the issue of the need for further capacity building versus sustaining efforts to incorporate traditional knowledge in activities of the Arctic Council.

The ”Arctic – Changing Realities” conference hosted by the Nordic Council of Ministers was succesfully carried through on 26 May 2010.

A list of distinguished and accomplished speakers made up the panels during the day, among them ministers, permanent secretaries, ambassadors, and senior arctic officials of the Nordic and Arctic countries, as well as Arctic Indigenous representatives, administrators, industrialists, and scientists.

Around 150 Attendants were given presentations on a variety of issues associated with governing, extracting resources, and living in the Arctic. The conference was skillfully moderated by journalist and former TV news anchor Martin Breum.

Presentations on the issue of Arctic governance gave rise to discussions on existing regimes and the possible need for additional governance instruments in the Arctic, the Arctic Council versus the 5 Arctic Coastal states, non-Arctic and civil society stakeholders, and the EU ban on seal products.

All speakers emphasized the importance of incorporating Indigenous and Arctic residents in initiatives related to governance, research, environmental protection, and sustainable development in the Arctic. However, not very many Arctic indigenous residents were actually at the conference, since no funds had been allocated to secure their participation.

As if spurred by the conspicuous lack of indigenous attendance, toward the closing of the conference, moderator Martin Breum asked the audience if the traditional knowledge of Indigenous people does in fact play a role in Nordic and Arctic co-operations, or if lip service is merely being paid to an unattained ideality.

Answering this question would have represented a step beyond and serious added value to earlier discourses on the topic of the Arctic and its inhabitants. As it were, the question was left unanswered at the end of the day.

RAIPON will be hosting the 5th Arctic Leaders Summit in Moscow on 14 and 15 April. On behalf of all of the 6 Arctic Council Permanent Participants and supported by the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, RAIPON is inviting parliamentarians and officials of the Arctic states and the Arctic Council as well as representatives of UN agencies, international financial institutions, and educational and scientific institutions to the summit to discuss industrial development in the Arctic under climate change.

The history of the Arctic Leaders Summit dates back to 1991 when ICC hosted the first of these events in Copenhagen. The main theme of the first summit was strengthening cooperation and partnership between indigenous peoples and governments.

Two years later, in 1993 in Norway, Saami Council hosted the second summit the theme of which was traditional knowledge and decisionmaking processes in the Arctic.

Then, after an interval of 6 years, RAIPON hosted the third summit that took place in Moscow in 1999 and had indigenous health issues as its main focus.

Another 6 years having elapsed, ALS IV was hosted by AAC in Canada in 2005. Environmental challenges, contaminants, oil and gas impacts and participation in the International Polar Year events were on the agenda.

When the Presidents and Chairs of the Permanents Participants gathered in Tromsø in April 2009 in conjunction with the Arctic Council Ministerial meeting they accepted the offer from RAIPON to host the ALS for the second time.

This time, the summit is scheduled back to back with the 20th anniversary of RAIPON to be celebrated on 16 April that will also see the opening in Moscow of the 2010 Northern Civilization Expo.