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.

Deputy ministers, state secretaries, and other delegates of the 8 Arctic States met with representatives of the Permanent Participants and the observers at an unprecedented Deputy Ministerial meeting on 27 May 2010.

The topic for the meeting was “Responding to emerging challenges in the Arctic” and Deputy Ministers were to discuss the leadership role of the Arctic Council. Thereafter, the meeting focused on the issues of Search and Rescue, Short-Lived Climate Forcers, and Sustaining Arctic Observation Networks, i.e., three areas on which the Arctic Council is expected to present significant results at the Ministerial Meeting in 2011.

Mandated by Ministers in the Tromsoe Ministerial declaration, the Deputy Ministers' meeting was conceived in response to a desire for more frequent political engagement within the overall framework of the Ministerial mandate for the Arctic Council.

The first session of the day consisted of a tour de table during which deputy ministers, permanent participants, and observers raised topics they considered most crucial to the future work of the Arctic Council.

Consensus among the national representatives centered round the need to reinforce the science based decision shaping role of the Arctic Council, while at the same time preserving the unique permanent participant role of indigenous people within the council and determining an appropriate role for the observers.

Among other things, the Danish/Greenlandic/Faroese delegate Inuuteq Holm Olsen noted that indigenous peoples and other people of the Arctic want development and sustainability, i.e., exactly the core purposes of the council. On the area of sustainable development, the delegate suggested, the council should develop into being more of a decision-making instrument rather than merely a decision-shaping one.

All delegation spokespersons stressed the need for strengthening the Arctic Council. Russian delegate, Ambassador at large Anton Vasiliev, remarked that rather than looking upon the Arctic Sea coastal states meetings (A5) as weakening of the role of the Arctic Council, A5 meetings had actually resulted in growing support for the Arctic Council as the main forum for Arctic policy discussions.

ICC Chair James Stotts said that permanent participants felt that their place at the table was not secure and that they were in danger of being squeezed out. To the ICC, the need seemed not so much for a reform of the Arctic Council as to regroup and refocus on the true virtues of the Arctic Council with fair and equitable solutions reached by member states and permanent participants and no one else.

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.

The Nordic Council of Ministers is hosting a conference entitled ”Arctic – Changing Realities” in Copenhagen on 26 May, i.e., back-to-back with the Arctic Council Deputy Ministerial and Information Day. An indication of the fact that Denmark holds the chairmanship in both councils, the Nordic as well as the Arctic, the conference will take place at the same venue as the two latter meeting, i.e., the Eigtveds Pakhus of the Danish Foreign Ministry.

With this conference, the Nordic Council of Ministers wishes to contribute to a constructive and creative dialogue between different stakeholders of the Arctic about how to adapt to the changing realities in the region. According to the organizers of the Conference, the changing realities of the Arctic are creating an imperative for deeper understanding of the current situation as well as to the responses and actions needed for the region to cope with these changes.

The upcoming conference is a follow-up to the conference “Common Concern for the Arctic” held in Ilulissat, Greenland, in September, 2008, and intends to move beyond some of the articulated questions, needs and challenges presented on that occasion. The conference is an attempt to identify how and in which areas the Nordic Council of Ministers could create added value to a sustainable development in the Arctic.

The one-day conference will focus on three main themes related to current Arctic realities: 1) Local and global governance, 2) Resources, and 3) Living. According to the organizers, a number of highly qualified speakers have been identified, among them representatives of indigenous peoples of the Arctic.

However, other than the speakers, as a consequence of lack of funding, very few representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Arctic will be attending the conference. Having the conference take place outside of the Arctic and back-to-back with other meetings, of course, will keep travel expenses down. Still, on this occasion, it may be that everybody is relying on someone else to pay for the participation of people living in the Arctic.