ARCTIC: Sámi Elections & more – 2nd Apr 2024

Bures from BA! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 2nd of April twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

The week kicks off in Finland with a focus on its Indigenous Sami community. Last October, the Sámi Parliament of Finland conducted its elections, but on Wednesday the 27th, Finland’s Supreme Court annulled them, ordering new ones. The decision stemmed from the Sami Parliament’s removal of seventy-two eligible voters from the electoral roll, rendering the election undemocratic. Reacting strongly, the Parliament accused Finland of violating their human rights by annulling their election. They assert that the individuals removed were not Sami and thus ineligible to vote, accusing Finland of manipulating the electoral roll to undermine Sami representation. While new elections are imminent, it remains uncertain whether the Sami Parliament will contest the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Speaking of Indigenous rights being violated, the consequences of Greenland’s Spiral Case continue. The Spiral case involves a period in the nineteen sixtees where the Danish government forced almost 5,000 women and girls to be surgically fitted with a contraceptive device. A group of 150 women sued the Danish government last month and on Friday the 29th the Greenlandic gender equality minister publicly urged the Danish government to visit Greenland and meet some of the affected women. This invitation has been extended several times before without response. Greenland’s government will launch its own investigation in April in an effort to speed up an answer and get justice for the surviving women.

Another legal matter having big repercussions in the Arctic is the size of the US. In January, the US State Department announced it was increasing the territory of the country by over 1 million square kilometers, staking claim to undersea land in the Arctic Ocean. On Monday the 25th, Russia’s Foreign Ministry responded in a statement, accusing the US of violating international law and refusing to recognize the extended area as US territory. As the extended territory borders Russia, this dispute will need to be resolved or the country will come into conflict with the US in the Arctic Ocean.

While we’re on the subject of Russia, the industrial development of the country’s Arctic continues rapidly. While Russia is extracting plenty of oil and gas in the north, getting it out of the Arctic is the hardest part. To address this, plans for a new rail line linking the North coast to the Trans-Siberian railway are underway. Gennady Guselnikov, the head of the Siberian Federal District's Interregional Association, revealed to the Russian State news agency TASS on Wednesday the 27th that the projected cost of this railway is nearly $90 billion US dollars. Even though it is costly, Guselnikov anticipates that the investment will be recouped within twenty years of operation. Guselnikov confirmed that in June, more detailed assessments will be conducted to refine cost and timeline estimates.

With the Arctic melting and the climate changing, every second counts. But we might be about to lose one because of melting polar ice. A study published on Wednesday, the 27th, in the scientific journal Nature found that as polar ice melts, it slows down the rotation of the Earth. Because we measure time based on the Earth’s movement, this means that within the next few years, humans will need to adjust clocks worldwide to remove a second. This has never been done before, and it may have severe consequences as many complex computer systems worldwide will need to be synchronized.

Moving to Alaska, state senator Dan Sullivan announced on Monday the 25th that Alaska has secured $125 million dollars of federal funding to purchase a new large icebreaker vessel for the Coast Guard to operate in the Arctic. The US only operates a single large icebreaker currently while Russia has fifty-five running. Being the dominant Arctic nation will require a strong naval presence and with China building its own icebreaker fleet, this marks a long overdue step toward the US building a competitive Arctic marine presence.

As Alaska and the whole Arctic change, many Indigenous people are losing their homes, livelihoods and even their languages. As reported by The Alaska Beacon on Tuesday the 26th, Indigenous tribes in Alaska are seeing their languages disappear due to climate change. For example, Gwich’in people use the term Łuk choo zhrii for July, which means the month of King Salmon. But this fish has become almost extinct in Alaska, so the term has become meaningless and the tribe may need to change the term for July. To combat this kind of language loss, the state project Language Access will compile a glossary of Native Alaskan words that are under threat from climate change. The aim of the program is to keep these endangered languages and cultures alive even as their environment disappears.

In tribal Alaskan updates, on Tuesday the 26th, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council received a nomination for a new board member: conservation advocate Becca Robbins Gisclair. Tasked with managing fisheries in the profitable Bering Sea, this nomination, if the US Commerce Secretary approves it, would mark a significant shift towards indigenous and environmental interests on the board, departing from its historical focus on the fishing industry. The council is embroiled in a battle over regulating bycatch of trawler vessels. Gisclair's historical advocacy for stricter regulation aligns with tribal fishing interests, offering hope for meaningful support if she secures the position.

Inuit people in Canada may face a difficult economic future. Canada's northern regions stand as the world's third-largest diamond producers. Typically, winter sees the construction of ice roads for mine access, but Reuters reported on Friday the 30th that the Tlicho government is restricting travel to certain diamond mines as their ice road has become unstable amidst warm weather. This underscores the ambitious yet challenging nature of mining in the Arctic. According to the territorial governments, Canada's three largest diamond mines are due to close by twenty thirty, as they are nearing full depletion. Given that these mines contribute over a quarter of the GDP of Arctic Canada and warming climates are increasingly hindering access, there are concerning indicators for the economic future of Canada's north.

Indigenous Canadians stand resilient while climate change devastates their communities, especially after the record wildfires last year which displaced seventy percent of the population of Canada’s North Western Territories, or NWT. In an effort to help their disaster recovery, the federal government announced on Tuesday the 26th the allocation of about $11 million US dollars to twenty-seven Indigenous governments and organizations in the NWT. These funds are specifically tailored to address unmet needs, like temporary shelter and sustenance. The funding will assist those who were unable to receive funding from previous recovery programs.

In other news, on Thursday the 28th, a Norwegian Coast Guard vessel caught a rare and beautiful sight: a polar bear mother with three cubs walking across the sea ice. This marks the first known triplet case in over twenty years, since Polar bears almost always have two cubs — sometimes only one if the gestation is difficult. Even better is that the video footage shows all three cubs looking big and healthy.

It’s a wonderful and hopeful sight for the endangered species. To watch the video, follow the link in the show notes.

And to close this edition, In European football, the Arctic nations have never been very successful but they usually put up a fight at least. Things hit a new low on Wednesday the 27th when the final qualification matches for the European Football Championships took place. The last hope for an Arctic representative was Iceland but they lost to Ukraine, meaning every Arctic country has been either eliminated or disqualified. The upcoming summer tournament will be the first without an Arctic nation competing since nineteen eighty-four. The northern nations may need to wait until the summer Olympics to make a name for themselves in the international arena.

And that’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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