[MUSIC] My name is Sandy Starkweather and I am from an Arctic State. And what I mean by that is that I'm from the United States, which is an Arctic nation by virtue of the Arctic land and territorial waters encompassed by the state of Alaska. To further understand what's meant by Arctic nation or Arctic state, let's take a look at the map. The geographical bounds of the Arctic are defined in various ways. Sometimes geophysically by the territories north of the latitudinal lines at 66 degrees north. Sometimes biologically by ecosystem extents like the northernmost extent of the tree line. Or sometimes geopolitically by nation state boundaries, which is what we're going to talk about today. Through this last definition there are eight Arctic nations. These are, in addition to the United States, our northern neighbor Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark through its territorial relationship with Greenland, as well as Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Russia. Here it's very important to include that national territories encompass indigenous homelands that often span these national boundaries. The Inuit, for example, are an indigenous group that have traditionally lived on each continent surrounding the Arctic Ocean. They, like either Arctic indigenous groups, have sovereign rights in their homelands and nation-to-nation relationships with the Arctic states or the Arctic eight as they are known. The Arctic eight along with six indigenous peoples organizations are all signatories to the Ottawa Declaration of 1996 that created the Arctic Council. The Arctic Council is the leading inter-governmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination, and interaction among the Arctic states, Arctic indigenous communities, and others on common Arctic issues. So what types of things might Arctic states want to cooperate on and why? Ever since its establishment environmental protection and sustainable development have been at the core of the work of the Arctic Council and set the context for the six working groups. Each of which is organized around some aspect of these topics like biodiversity or pollution reduction. Cooperation on these topics is imperative for a variety of reasons. One, because things like Arctic marine mammals such as walrus or beluga whales regularly cross international Arctic maritime boundaries in their annual migrations or even their quest for tonight's dinner. Nations must cooperate to monitor their health and agree to things where applicable like harvest limits. Further, the Arctic is a very expensive place to operate, sharing operational resources and infrastructure is critical. This type of sharing is exemplified by the MOSAiC scientific expedition, but is also highly relevant for coordinating non-scientific operations like search and rescue or disaster response. The Arctic Council and it's working groups meet regularly to address issues like these while improving monitoring and management of their shared ocean basin. Additional states, called observer states, like China and the Netherlands, also sit in on these discussions. In a moment I'll give you some insights into why. My own Arctic research career began in climatological studies of the Greenland ice sheet. Greenland is the largest island in the world and home to the second largest mass of ice. It might surprise you to learn, however, that this enormous landmass is home to fewer than 60,000 residents. When I ended in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland in 2000, I was surprised to find myself walking through a former US Air Force base. I learned that Greenland provided a very strategic logistics hub during World War II, which continued to be strategic during the Cold War? If you tilt a globe towards you, putting the North Pole to your nose, it's clear to see that if Russia or the US were to launch missiles towards one another, launching across the Arctic is the most direct path. While this type of warfare certainly seems unthinkable today, it was a very real consideration until the 1990s. A considerable amount of NATO and US defense infrastructure can still be found in Greenland such as the Defense Early Warning Line or DEW Line radars. It is still home to the US Air Force base of Thule in northwest Greenland. This high tension state of the Cold War has, thankfully, relaxed considerably since the 1990s. That, combined with changing Arctic conditions, have ushered in an era of cooperation or, more accurately, controlled competition. In this case, a competition for the Arctic's rich resources. The growing impacts of global greenhouse gas emissions have warmed the considerably, altering its land and seascapes. In addition to the types of physical and biological impacts of these changes you're learning about, these alterations have also impacted human activity. For example, as the sea ice has receded, more maritime activities like transit and resource extraction have become economically viable. What types of resources are we talking about? Principally fossil fuels and commercial fisheries. The race for Arctic resources, particularly those that lay beyond the bounds of any sovereign territory, has the potential to lead to a new escalation in regional tensions. In this respect, the Arctic Council can also be viewed as a form of soft diplomacy. A mechanism to maintain peaceful cooperation in a region that could otherwise fall to the tensions of a great powers race. This leads us back to those non-Arctic states that participate in the Arctic Council. They are motivated in part by how negotiations might impact their stake in some of these resources that lie beyond the territorial waters of the Arctic eight. In this respect, a critical policy tool sits not with the Arctic Council, but with the United Nations. It is called the UN Law of the Sea Convention. This convention, starting in 1982, was the first to extend international law to the vast shared water resources known as the high seas. Its intention was to resolve issues related to ocean usage and sovereignty through developing clear definitions for jurisdictional maritime zones adjacent to nations and describing the types of sovereign rights attached to those zones. It sets forth definitions and rights for zones like territorial seas that extend 12 miles off of national coastlines where foreign vessels, for example, need permission to transit. It sets definitions and rights for exclusive economic zones that extend 200 miles. Where nations can specify limits to foreign activity like scientific sampling, which was not permitted on the Polar CERN's transit across the Russian Arctic EEZ. And extended continental shelf zones where nations can exclusively exploit the resources of the sea floor. While the US is not yet a signatory to the Law of the Sea, it does respect and observe the boundaries laid forth by it. The scientific definition of an extended continental shelf is clear, but that doesn't always resolve policy conflicts when claims intersect. For example, in examining the map you can see that there are conflicting claims in the Arctic principally between Russia, Canada, and Denmark. With an estimated 22% of undiscovered global oil and gas reserves located under Arctic waters, the stakes are high for determining whose rights prevail. Importantly, some seafloor will remain, by definition, outside of any sovereign territory, opening up the possibility that non-Arctic states can stake claims to these resources operating without reference to any national regulations. Some of these interested states are currently observers on the Arctic Council. Similar jurisdictional issues impact fisheries. Some viable commercial fishing areas in the Arctic lie outside the jurisdictional boundaries and the regulations of any Arctic nation. Areas of unregulated fishing have been severely over-fished in the past. A famous example concerns the walleye pollock fisheries of the Northern Pacific Ocean and the so-called Donut Hole, an area that lies outside the territorial waters of the US and Russia. Walleye pollock is North America's most abundant and lucrative natural fishery and is the world's largest fishery for human food. During the period following World War II, pollock stocks in this area were severely over-fished leading to one of the most dramatic fish stock collapses in history. 20 years after a moratorium ended fishing in the area, it has still not recovered. The Central Arctic Ocean has its own Donut Hole, which could legally be fished as intensively as the North Pacific Donut Hole. The main thing preventing that up until now has been the persistence of summertime Arctic sea ice. To prevent another ecological and economic catastrophe, nine nations Arctic and Japan, South Korea, and China, plus the EU signed the Central Arctic Ocean Agreement, creating a voluntary moratorium on fishing in the Central Arctic. This agreement will safeguard an area about the size of the Mediterranean for at least the next 16 years. The signatories will also begin a joint scientific program. Here, again, we see the critical role that our shared values for scientific understanding of the planet play in diplomatic actions and geopolitics. Our science is critical to supporting the sustainable development of the Arctic and underscores how tightly interwoven the fate of the Arctic is to the fate of climate and economic conditions where you live, whether that is in an Arctic state or not.
