Report details next steps in arctic shipping policies

As the climate warms and global commerce grows, the prospect of an arctic shipping route becomes more tangible. A new report by SNRAS faculty offers international policymakers guidance for navigating the political and practical ramifications of shipping in the Arctic.

The report,
“Considering a Roadmap Forward: The Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment,” is the result of a workshop hosted by the UA Geography Program in October 2009 as part of the University of the Arcticʼs Institute for Applied Circumpolar Policy. The workshop drew nearly 70 experts from Canada, China, Denmark, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States to examine the seventeen recommendations outlined in the Arctic Councilʼs 2009 Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment.

“The workshop report takes the key AMSA recommendations and provides to the arctic community a list of action items to consider as we collectively navigate a future of change,” said Mike Sfraga, head of the UA Geography Program and UAF vice chancellor for students.

Sfraga co-chairs the Institute for Applied Circumpolar Policy with Kenneth Yalowitz of Dartmouth College. Yalowitz is director of the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth. “The future of shipping in the Arctic is one of the most important issues resulting from climate change in the North,” Yalowitz said.

The three-day October 2009 workshop focused on three themes: enhancing arctic marine safety, protecting arctic people, and the environment, and building the arctic marine infrastructure. The twenty-four-page report offers dozens of proposed actions, many of which will require public or private funding. Among the highest-priority policy issues are:

• A mandatory International Maritime Organization Polar Code.
• Full tracking and monitoring of arctic commercial ships.
• An arctic search and rescue agreement (underway).
• Surveys of indigenous marine use.
• A circumpolar response capacity agreement among the arctic states.
• Implementation of an arctic observing network to support science and marine
operations.

“The working groups identified a roadmap, actions, and a set of key issues for each of AMSAʼs recommendations,” said Distinguished Professor Lawson Brigham, who led the original AMSA effort for the Arctic Council. Sfraga presented the report at an Institute for Applied Circumpolar Policy workshop in Rovaniemi, Finland, last week. UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers is sharing the report with members of the University of the Arctic, Arctic Council, and Arctic Parliamentarians in Brussels this week.

The workshop report will also be widely distributed to the global maritime and arctic communities.