Introduction. How will you explain the growth of international and inter-regional cooperation in the Circumpolar North

How will you explain the growth of international and inter-regional cooperation in the Circumpolar North, and how could global warming affect this cooperation?

Introduction

Traditionally, the perception of the Arctic was to see it as a remote area in the north, sparsely inhabited and economically unimportant. Therefore, national decisions made in the centre applied for the Arctic, although they might have caused local aggravations and simply did not suit Arctic conditions. Up until recently, the Arctic played a marginal role in international cooperation, but in the twentieth century it has shifted into vision of national and international interests, because of the seemingly unlimited natural resources which were discovered especially in the last eighty to ninety years. Moreover, the ongoing changes in the Arctic caused by changes in the climate have global impacts (ACIA 2004: 8, 9) and natural resources formerly covered by ice and permafrost are now increasingly accessible, which makes the Arctic an economically interesting and demanding area. These conditions demand international and regional cooperation to assess, evaluate and mitigate the impacts of climate change on a local, regional and global level and to settle possible delimitation disputes in the Arctic waters. Especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, environmental problems i.e. on the Kola Peninsula have started regional cooperation to tackle the problems connected to the nuclear legacy or harmful industrial emissions affecting the region and the Arctic as a whole. Furthermore, indigenous peoples living in the Arctic and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union have started to cooperate regionally (i.e. the Saami in Scandinavia) and internationally in order to improve their conditions in the industrialized, western world (Heininen, undated: 195). The run for the Arctic which initially started in the 1980s triggered increasing cooperation and the Arctic Council as the main body of international cooperation combines all above mentioned aspects and is to assess and evaluate all environmental and economical changes in the Arctic and to ensure sustainable development for all peoples living in the North.

This paper will analyze the reasons behind growing international and inter-regional cooperation in the Arctic by presenting means of cooperation. It furthermore refers to the position of climate change within the cooperative structures.