Sustainable communities and the Legacy of Mining in the Nordic Arctic
Applicant: Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment at KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greenland, Russia
Project start 2014, expected to be finalized in 2016.
The overall objective of the project is to investigate how the legacies of mining have impacted communities in the Nordic Arctic. Specifically, the project examines how the material structures produced by mining influence the prospects for producing sustainable communities, and how the industrial heritage can function as a resource for imaging sustainable economic futures. The project employs a multi-disciplinary approach (drawing on archaeology, history, anthropology, cultural studies, and human geography) and seeks to produce insights and lessons applicable across different mining-based communities in the Nordic Arctic. The project is based upon three discrete summer fieldwork phases, respectively at Kiruna (Sweden), Qullissat (Greenland), and Longyearbyen and Pyramiden (Svalbard).
Values from Waste
Applicant: MATIS ohf / University of Akureyri
Countries: Iceland, Norway, Russia
Project start 2014, expected to be finalized in 2016.
The "Values from wastes" project is collaboration between the Arctic areas of North Iceland, North Norway and North West Russia, with selected representative food industries involved in each of the three areas. The aim of the project is to develop and transfer technologies for the development of innovative value-added products from by-product wastes. The focus is on wastes derived from food production and processing activities within each participating area and based on by-product characterization and availability at each site. This will increase the value and sustainable utilization of natural resources while contributing to increased job opportunities in the Arctic.
Arctic Shipping Data Service – Development of a circumpolar Arctic shipping database
Applicant: PAME International Secretariat
Countries: Iceland, Norway, Greenland, Finland, Sweden, Canada, United States, Russia
Project start 2015, expected to be finalized in 2017.
The Arctic Shipping Data Service (ASDS) is an initiative responding to increased attention and activities of shipping in the circumpolar Arctic. It aims at providing a database on Arctic shipping activities, which provides a platform for analysing shipping activities in the Arctic, and its interactions with environmental protection measures and trends, such as changing sea ice conditions, technical advancements and new regulations, including the IMO Polar Code.
Arctic Ship Traffic data Project – Development of a circumpolar Arctic shipping database (Phase 2)
Applicant: PAME International Secretariat
Countries: Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, The United States, Russia, Canada, Greenland, Sweden
Project start 2016, expected to be finalized in 2017.
The main source of shipping activity data is by access to use the information collected by the Automatic Information System (AIS). The International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires all ships over 300.000 GT to carry AIS transmitters. ASTD will use the data to create shipping activity based maps and graphs of trends, traffic, shipping routes and types of ships, in addition to other information of importance, including the type of fuel burned. This information will lead to increased knowledge and ensures best practice will be followed for any policy recommendation for Arctic shipping activities, including for environmental impact assessments, risk assessments, economic impact assessments, infrastructure developments and policy recommendations. In addition, it will provide researchers, experts, think tanks, students, governments, institutions, organizations and the private sector with the opportunity to access Arctic shipping information for their own analysis.
Healthy Food and Lifestyle Choices
Applicant: Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute
Countries: Norway, Finland, Russia
Project start 2015, expected to be finalized in 2017.
The main aim of this project is to contribute to a more healthy diet in a changing Arctic through bringing scientists and stakeholders from Norway, Finland and Russia together. In the exchange the project will share and map status on healthy diets, mapping successful cases and provide information on preferences from stakeholders articulated in workshop and in survey. Finally we will provide ideas for common courses, seminars and networks to improve health food and lifestyle choices in the Artic. A specific focus will be on the "disappearance of" and "re-appearance of" traditional and local food culture such as the importance of local food, diets, meal-patterns and cooking, and on how the local food culture and food quality (nutrition as well as food safety), alcohol as a part of eating habit and food waste change over time in the Artic area. The public health in the Arctic regions of the Nordic countries and Russia are threatened by a number of life style related factors. Diet and food consumption constitute major challenges in terms of health effects.
The 2015 Arctic Energy Summit: Energy in a Lasting Frontier
Applicant: The Arctic Portal
Countries: Iceland, Sweden, Norway, United States
Project start 2013, expected to be finalized in 2017.
The 2015 Arctic Energy Summit: Energy in a Lasting Frontier (AES 2015) is a multi-disciplinary event with the scopes of enhancing dialogue in the North, fostering collaboration among local and international companies and organizations and sharing leading approaches and expertise on Arctic energy issues. Building on the concept that "energy is a fundamental element of the sustainable development of the Arctic as lasting frontier", this year´s conference's main aim will be to outline "pathways for affordable energy development in the Arctic and for Arctic communities".
This year's conference will be held in Alaska, making it difficult for many Nordic stakeholders to take part to it, but the project will ensure the attendance by key Nordic leaders/representatives of the business sector/scientists that are relevant to the conference. The project will also, in cooperation with the conference host the Institute of the North, promote the conference and disseminate its results including the production of multimedia material – pod casts ( as at the 2013 conference), media material for press distribution and a conference report.
Sustainable Seaweed Harvest in Greenland (SUSHi)
Applicant: Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Nuuk, Greenland
Countries: Denmark, Greenland, Norway
Project start 2016, expected to be finalized in 2019.
Ecologically and economically sustainable seaweed harvesting in Greenland is facilitated by: 1) the establishment of an environmental monitoring program to ensure optimization of yield and minimizing environmental damage of harvest; 2) optimization of quality; and 3) identification of sales channels and branding of products in relation to the particular qualities of Arctic / Greenland seaweed, the Arctic environment, for example, Inuit traditions and traditional recipes / anecdotes (story telling).
This project seeks to tighten the loop from sustainable harvesting to possible marketing by including expertise from studies of Greenland’s seaweed forests and environmental studies of seaweed forest harvesting in Norway, experience of harvesting and drying seaweed in Greenland and expertise and experience in relation to creating jobs and earnings based on seaweed in Greenland.
The overall aim is to develop and implement an environmental monitoring program which examines the effects of seaweed harvesting in relation to the efficiency of various harvesting methods and thus ensure both optimization of yield and minimization of the damage of harvest. This program can further provide the basis for certification of sustainability. Furthermore, the project aims to ensure seaweed products' high quality by checking for optimum drying method compared to flavour, texture and preservation of beneficial ingredients. In conclusion, the project aims to disseminate these results and identify marketing channels in order to make recommendations for harvesting and drying of seaweed, as well as for opening a sustainable business of high quality seaweed products from Greenland.
Intensive aquaculture and sustainable regional development in the Arctic region – From controversy to dialog (AquaLog)
Applicant: Nofima (The Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture), Norway
Countries: Iceland, Sweden, Canada, the Faroe Islands
Project start 2015, expected to be finalized in 2017.
The overall objective is to establish a network project to:
- identify factors and forces that influence the aquaculture controversy in the Arctic region. In the first year, the focus was to identify similarities and differences regarding the aquaculture controversy in Sweden, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Norway, and Canada. The AquaLog partners were enthusiastic, and it was clear that knowledge transfer between the different countries is very advantageous. The first network meeting revealed that the controversies in the five Arctic countries concern several of the same issues, where environmental integrity seems to be the most important subtheme. This despite the countries being very different in terms of the size of the countries and populations, and aquaculture production volumes, etc. However, it seems that controversies over Aboriginal and local community rights are more visible in Canada than in the Nordic countries. In order to investigate these aspects of the controversy further, the next workshop will be arranged in Canada. Other sustainability issues will also be studied.
The next steps in the project are to:
-identify challenges and opportunities in relation to sustainable regional development of aquaculture in the Arctic region, and its interaction with the Arctic communities;
-understand and manage the effects of aquaculture on indigenous peoples and Arctic communities.