Arctic Sovereignty Debate Articles

msinker — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:45:29 +0000

Please see below for information about Arctic Sovereignty.

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/243448

Canada should do more to protect Arctic sovereignty: Layton

August 05, 2007

Canadian Press

Climate change is destroying the country’s North as we know it and the federal government is not doing enough to protect Canada‘s Arctic sovereignty, NDP Leader Jack Layton said Sunday.

“The Russian mission to place its flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole demonstrates a troubling reality for Northern communities and all Canadians concerning Arctic sovereignty,” Layton said in a letter sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who’s due to visit several Northern communities this week.

A Russian expedition reached the North Pole on Wednesday, and scientists sent two mini-submarines under the ice to mark the sea floor Thursday with a Russian flag. The voyage’s chief goal appeared to be advancing Russia‘s political and economic influence by strengthening its legal claims to the huge gas and oil deposits thought to lie beneath the Arctic sea floor.

Layton criticized the government’s decision to buy up to eight medium ice-strengthened military patrol vessels, instead of three heavy ice-breakers it promised during the last election, saying it is “misguided.”

“Canada must move quickly to make immediate, strategic investments in its Arctic and recognize that the greatest challenges in the North are social, economic and environmental,” said Layton.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said the NDP is “just plain wrong” when it claims that Canada is not exercising its legitimate rights in the Arctic.

The Russian mission to the North Pole has done nothing to affect Canada‘s claims over the Arctic, MacKay said in a statement.

“Canada‘s sovereignty over our arctic region is rooted in an historic connection to the land, its continued habitation by the Inuit people and our constant assertion of our sovereign claims.”

The government believes the Canadian Forces must have the capability to operate more effectively in the Arctic, the minister said.

Layton’s statements about the new patrol ships are misleading, Mackay said, and the vessels “will provide the flexibility for the Navy to operate in both the Arctic and offshore environments, allowing them to be used year-round in a variety of roles, including domestic surveillance, search and rescue, and support to other government departments.”

Critics claim Canada has done little to assert its sovereignty in the Arctic since 2003, when this country signed an international treaty that set the clock running for countries to stake out their territory in the polar sea.

Under international law, five Arctic countries – Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark – control an economic zone within 320 kilometres of their continental shelf. But the definition of the limits of that shelf are in dispute.

Ottawa has long maintained that Canada‘s sovereignty over the lands and waters of the Canadian Arctic is longstanding, well-established and based on historic title.

Harper has called the Arctic “central to our identity as a northern nation.”

The Arctic countries have 10 years to map and file their claims for international consideration. Experts say that mapping the floor of the ocean would require one or two heavy ice-breakers, which Canada does not have.

“To exercise our sovereignty, Canada needs vessels that can go anywhere, anytime, in those areas we claim as our own,” said Layton, calling for an immediate increase in government funding for scientific research that would gather evidence to support Canada‘s Arctic claim.

“Rather than buying military `slushbreakers,’ we should be building new polar icebreakers . . . to break ice for commercial vessels, help re-supply northern communities, maintain navigation devices, provide search and rescue, and support research scientists,” Layton said.

The NDP leader also tackled climate change, saying it is destroying Northern Canada, as we know it, threatening to interrupt the people’s traditional way of life.

“Slowing and then stopping climate change as quickly as possible should be an imperative for any Canadian government,” said Layton.

“Climate change policy is Northern policy, and we have no time to waste.”

MacKay responded that the government is tackling climate change through “an aggressive legislative framework” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industrial emitters.

The government also is participating in an international strategy to pursue long-term solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that involves actions by all major emitting countries such as the U.S., China and India, the minister’s statement said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/world/americas/11canada.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

August 11, 2007

Canada Announces Plans for 2 New Bases in Its Far North

By IAN AUSTEN

OTTAWA, Aug. 10 — In the latest of a series of claims over portions of the Arctic, Canada said Friday that it planned to build two new military bases in the far north to assert its sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.

The status of the shipping route, navigable only with the aid of icebreakers for a small part of the year, has been the source of a longstanding dispute that has pitted Canada against the United States and Russia.

Warming climate trends may reduce ice in the passage and make it a substantially shorter alternative to the Panama Canal for commercial shipping. The seabed under the route may also contain oil, gas and minerals that could be extracted if the ice cover diminishes.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has been touring the Canadian Arctic for several days, said the military would convert a former mining site in Nanisivik, in the territory of Nunavut, into a deep-water port and ship refueling station. Existing government buildings in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, will be turned into an Arctic training center for the army, and the Canadian Rangers, mostly made up of Inuit volunteers, will be increased by 900 members and re-equipped.

“The first principle of Arctic sovereignty is use it or lose it,” Mr. Harper said in Resolute Bay. “Today’s announcements tell the world that Canada has a real, growing, long-term presence in the Arctic.”

The Canadian military now has only a very small presence in the far north, relying traditionally on training exercises in the spring and summer to assert its claim over the region. Many of those excursions involve the Rangers, who currently number about 4,100 and are equipped largely with little more than obsolete rifles.

Mr. Harper’s tour and announcements took place after a Russian mission planted a tiny flag in a titanium capsule on the seabed at the North Pole last week. While the effort was billed as a claim on the territory, it was seen as mostly symbolic.

Denmark is mapping an underwater ridge that extends from Greenland as a prelude to claiming the territory. But Russia and Canada also have designs on the ridge, which may be rich in minerals.

The new port will be located at the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage, making it a point of potential contention with other nations.

Canada maintains that the passage is an inland waterway, giving it the right to control when or if any ship crosses it. Most other nations, including the United States, dispute that and argue that a right of international passage exists.

The United States and Russia have run ships through the passage without Canada’s permission to assert their position. However, Canada and the United States signed a treaty in 1988 that effectively prevents American crossings except for ships also carrying Canadian scientists.

James K. Foster, a spokesman for the United States Embassy in Ottawa, said Washington was concerned only about maintaining the right of international passage through the area. “The U.S. has no claims on minerals and land,” he said.

In the past, environmentalists have been among those encouraging greater control of the Arctic and the Northwest Passage in particular. The region’s ecosystem is particularly fragile and would be likely to suffer tremendous damage if, for example, an oil tanker sank or sprang a leak in the passage.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6939732.stm

Canada PM asserts Arctic claims

Mr Harper said Canada had taken its sovereignty too lightly

Canada’s prime minister has stressed his country’s claims to the Arctic region on a trip there, days after Russia laid claim to the North Pole.

Correspondents say Stephen Harper’s tour has taken on new urgency since Russian sailors dropped a flag on the sea bed below the pole last week.

“Canada has taken its sovereignty too lightly for too long,” Mr Harper said.

“This government has put a big emphasis on reinforcing, on strengthening our sovereignty in the Arctic.”

Melting polar ice has led to competing claims over access to Arctic resources.

But the BBC’s Lee Carter, in Toronto, says that not everything about Mr Harper’s three-day tour of the Arctic is concerned with Canadian sovereignty.

See a detailed map of the region

Mr Harper also announced the expansion of one of the most remote national parks in Canada‘s vast and rugged north.

However, our correspondent says that when Mr Harper spoke to reporters it did not take long for the sovereignty issue, and in particular Russia‘s claims, to come to the fore.

“I think the recent activities of the Russians are another indication that there’s going to be growing international interest in this region,” Mr Harper said, speaking in Yellowknife, some 500km (311 miles) south of the Arctic Circle.

Unique expedition

Several other countries with territories bordering the Arctic have launched competing claims to the seabed below the North Pole.

That area is not currently regarded as part of any single country’s territory and is governed instead by complex international agreements.

In a unique expedition last week, Russian explorers planted a flag on the seabed 4,200m (14,000ft) below the pole.

The move drew derision from Canada, with Foreign Minister Peter MacKay likening it to tactics used in the 15th Century.

Canada and the US are also engaged in a dispute over the future of the Northwest Passage, the partially frozen waterway that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The US says it regards it as an international strait but Mr Harper has vociferously defended the passage as Canadian territory.

He has already announced plans to build six naval patrol vessels to secure the route.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/11/europe/EU-GEN-Denmark-Arctic-Claims.php

International Herald Tribute

Denmark maps Arctic ridge in race for polar sovereignty

OSLO, Norway: Danish scientists head for the Arctic ice pack on Sunday seeking evidence to position Denmark in a race to claim the potentially vast oil and other resources of the North Pole region.

Russia sent two small submarines to plant a tiny national flag under the North Pole last week. Canada, the United States and Norway also have competing claims in the vast Arctic region, where a U.S. study suggests as much as 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden.

The monthlong Danish expedition will seek evidence that the Lomonosov Ridge, a 2,000-kilometer- (1,240-mile) underwater mountain range, is attached to the Danish territory of Greenland, making it a geological extension of the Arctic island.

That might allow the Nordic nation to stake a claim under a U.N. treaty that could stretch all the way the North Pole, although Canada and Russia also claim the ridge.

“The preliminary investigations done so far are very promising,” Helge Sander, Denmark’s minister of science, technology and innovation told Denmark’s TV2 on Thursday. “There are things suggesting that Denmark could be given the North Pole.”

The Danes plan to set off from Norway’s remote Arctic islands of Svalbard aboard the Swedish icebreaker Oden, which will be assisted by a powerful Russian nuclear icebreaker to plow through ice as thick as 5 meters (16 feet) in the area north of Greenland.

“No one has ever sailed in that area. Ships have sailed on the edges of the ice but no one has been in there,” expedition leader Christian Marcussen, of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, said in Copenhagen. “The challenge for us will be the ice.”

The team includes 40 scientists, 10 of them Danish, and the crews of the icebreakers, which will use sophisticated equipment, including sonar, to map the seabed under the ice.

“We will be collecting data for a possible (sovereignty) demand,” Marcussen said. “It is not our duty to formulate a demand of ownership.”

A team of Swedish researchers studying glacial history in the Arctic is also part of the expedition.

The race for sovereignty in the Arctic is heating up partly because global warming is shrinking the polar ice, which could someday open up resource development and new shipping lanes.

The pressure is also on the Arctic nations because of the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which gives them 10 years after ratification to prove their claims under the largely uncharted polar ice pack. All but the United States have ratified the treaty.

Canada will build two new military facilities in the Arctic in a move to assert sovereignty over the contested region, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday, and the United States sent an icebreaker north to map the ocean floor for its own claims.

“The Russians, Canadians and Danes all have overlapping claims in the polar region. It is unclear how this can be resolved,” said maritime law expert Oeystein Jensen, of Oslo’s Fridtjof Nansen’s Institute. “There is a lot of prestige and vast resources at stake.”

Associated Press writer Jan M. Olsen contributed to this report from Copenhagen.

On the Net:

http://a76.dk/expeditions_uk/lomrog2007_uk/index.html

The Copenhagen Post

http://www.cphpost.dk/print.jsp?o_id=89556

Canada occupies Denmark

26.07.2005

The vice president of Greenland‘s Home Rule says that a Canadian minister’s trip to a disputed island is an act of occupation

Foreign troops haven’t occupied Danish territory since 1946, when Soviet troops withdrew from the Baltic island of Bornholm, nearly a year after the end of WWII hostilities.

Now, however, a new threat to the nation’s sovereignty is rising, says Josef Motzfeldt, vice president of Greenland‘s Home Rule.

Motzfeldt is up in arms over the unannounced visit of Canadian Defence Minister to Hans Island, a tiny Arctic island located in the Kennedy Channel between Greenland, a part of the Danish commonwealth, and Canada, reports national broadcaster DR.

‘When someone unfairly tries to exercise their influence on the island, which is claimed by both Greenland/Denmark and Canada, I can’t interpret the action as anything but occupation,’ said Motzfeldt.

Hans Island is claimed by both countries and is often visited by each country’s naval forces, who make symbolic gestures such as the raising of flags, in order to prove sovereignty.

Graham’s visit, according to Canadian press, was a move to strengthen Canadian claims to the island.

Motzfeldt said the visit highlighted the need for an international solution to the dispute.

According to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country can claim disputed areas as its own if it is geologically connected to them.

Despite the bellicose Canadian action, Motzfeldt sought a more amicable solution to the conflict over the island’s ownership.

‘Scientists must determine on (geological, ed.) grounds which nations can claim Hans Island,’ said Motzfeldt.

Danish and Canadian diplomats have taken Motzfeldt’s claim in stride and have thus far kept the conflict to a war of words.

After the Danish embassy in Ottawa was informed of Graham’s visit a week after it took place, the Danish Foreign Ministry said that it planned to file an official protest with the Canadian ambassador in Copenhagen.

Peter Taksøe-Jensen, the head of the Danish Foreign Ministry’s legal service, said he and the Canadian ambassador agreed that the matter was a case of ‘agreeing to disagree’ and that though a solution would eventually be found, it would likey be later rather than sooner, as both countries had more pressing affairs elsewhere, reported DR.

The Copenhagen Post

http://www.cphpost.dk/get/102951.html

Battle looming over North Pole mineral wealth

02.08.2007

Diplomatic tensions could heat up between Russia, Denmark and other countries as they try to stake a claim on the North Pole and its buried oil reserves

A Russian expedition set sail toward the North Pole Tuesday in a bid to prove the icy region actually belongs to Moscow. At the present time, no country has territorial rights to the perpetually frozen waters of the North Pole, but Russia as well as Denmark, Canada, Norway and the United States have control of a 320 km area beyond their borders based on the United Nations convention from 1982.

The current Russian expedition that includes a mini-submarine and nuclear-powered icebreaker hopes to prove that the Russian continental shelf is actually connected to the Lomonosov Ridge, which passes under the pole.

The expedition’s leader, Artur Chilingarov, a noted Arctic explorer and a deputy speaker in the Russian Duma, considered the expedition a vital project for the country, The Moscow Times reported.

The expedition is not merely a show of patriotism akin to past adventures to the North Pole. Geologists believe one quarter of the earth’s untapped oil and gas reserves could lie hidden beneath the crust.

‘The Arctic is ours and we should demonstrate our presence,’ said Chilingarov.

Before leaving, Chilingarov told journalists he expected the submarine to dive 4000 metres and plant a Russian tricolour flag at the North Pole this week.

The Russian expedition will not be entirely alone at the ice cap. Denmark is in the midst of staking a claim on the Arctic, too.

Experts from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) are conducting studies to see whether the Lomonosov Ridge is geologically connected to Greenland. If it is, then Denmark can make claims on up to 200,000 square kilometres of sea which currently lie outside Greenland’s territorial waters.

Denmark has seven years to prove that the Danish flag should fly over the area. If successful, Denmark will not only obtain rights to potential mineral wealth below the crust, it will also be allowed to claim the North Pole as its own.

The two countries’ eagerness to plant their flags could trigger diplomatic and political quarrels similar to last summer’s squabble over Hans Island, when Canada and Denmark butted heads over the small granite outcrop.

Even though the island located between Canada’s northern territories and Greenland currently has no commercial value, it could suddenly prove to be a hot piece of real estate if climate change allows ships to pass through the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean.

Canadian officials recently admitted that the latest satellite photos suggested the island does not fall entirely under the maple leaf’s shadow as it has maintained for the past three decades.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070815.wdenmarkarctic0815/BNStory/International/home

Denmark scoffs at Canadian, Russian moves on Arctic

Flag planting dismissed as ‘a summer joke’

Associated Press

August 15, 2007 at 12:52 AM EDT

COPENHAGEN — Denmark‘s science minister has dismissed moves by Russia and Canada to assert sovereignty over the Arctic, saying flag-planting and political visits will not settle territorial claims in the potentially resource-rich region.

The scramble for the Arctic heated up two weeks ago when Russia sent two small submarines to plant a tiny flag under the North Pole.

Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent three days in the Canadian Arctic.

Denmark sent a team of scientists to the Arctic ice pack Sunday to seek evidence that the Lomonosov Ridge, a 1,995-kilometre underwater mountain range, is attached to the Danish territory Greenland.

The Danish expedition, which had been planned for years, might allow the Danes — under a UN treaty — to stake a claim that could stretch all the way to the North Pole, although Canada and Russia also claim the ridge.

The United States and Norway also have claims in the vast Arctic region, where a U.S. study suggests as much as 25 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden.

“No matter how many flags you plant or how many prime ministers you send that doesn’t become a valid parameter in the process,” said Helge Sander, Denmark‘s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation.

Russia and Canada “also have serious projects. But the lowering of the flag was simply a summer joke,” Mr. Sander said.

The race for sovereignty in the Arctic is intensifying partly because global warming is shrinking the polar ice, which could some day open up resource development and new shipping lanes.

The pressure is also on the Arctic countries because of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which gives them 10 years after ratification to prove their claims under the largely uncharted polar ice pack. All but the United States have ratified the treaty.

Denmark, which also plans expeditions in 2009 and 2011, expects to deliver its claim in 2014, Mr. Sander said.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/08/09/canada.arctic.ap/index.html

Canadian PM vows to defend Arctic

9 August 2007

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) – Canada‘s prime minister has begun a three-day trip to the Arctic in an effort to assert sovereignty over the region a week after Russia symbolically staked a claim to the North Pole by sending submarines.

Although Stephen Harper’s visit has been planned for months, it has taken on new importance since the Russian subs dived 2½ miles to the Arctic shelf and planted their country’s flag in a titanium capsule.

“The Russians sent a submarine to drop a small flag at the bottom of the ocean. We’re sending our prime minister to reassert Canadian sovereignty,” a senior government official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because his language was undiplomatic.

Five countries — Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark — are competing to secure subsurface rights to the Arctic seabed. One study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas.

Harper, who has pledged to spend billions defending Canada‘s sovereignty over the Arctic, is expected to announce the location of a planned military deep water port later in the week.

“Our government has an aggressive Arctic agenda,” said Dimitri Soudas, the prime minister’s spokesman.

“Economic development — unleashing the resource-based potential of the North, environmental protection — protecting the unique Northern environment, national sovereignty — protecting our land, airspace and territorial waters.”

Last month, Harper announced that six to eight new patrol ships will be built to guard the Northwest Passage sea route in the Arctic, which the United States insists does not belong to Canada.

U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins has criticized Harper’s promise to defend the Arctic, calling the Northwest Passage “neutral waters.”

Harper said last month the deep water port will serve as an operating base for naval ships and also will be used for commercial purposes. He might also announce a military training center in the Arctic.

“Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it,” Harper said.

The disputed Northwest Passage runs below the North Pole from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic Archipelago.

As global warming melts the passage — which is navigable only during a slim window in the summer — the waters are exposing unexplored resources, and becoming an attractive shipping route. Commercial ships can shave off some 2,480 miles from Europe to Asia compared with the current routes through the Panama Canal.

Canada also wants to assert its claim over Hans Island at the entrance to the Northwest Passage.

The half-square-mile rock, one-seventh the size of New York‘s Central Park, is wedged between Canada‘s Ellesmere Island and Danish-ruled Greenland, and for more than 20 years has been a subject of unusually bitter exchanges between the two NATO allies.

In 1984, Denmark‘s minister for Greenland affairs, Tom Hoeyem, caused a stir when he flew in on a chartered helicopter, raised a Danish flag on the island, buried a bottle of brandy at the base of the flagpole and left a note saying: “Welcome to the Danish island.”

The dispute erupted again two years ago when former Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham set foot on the rock while Canadian troops hoisted the Maple Leaf flag.

Denmark sent a letter of protest to Ottawa, while Canadians and Danes took out competing Google ads, each proclaiming sovereignty over the rock 680 miles south of the North Pole.

Some Canadians even called for a boycott of Danish pastries.

Canada and the United States dismissed the Russian flag-planting as legally meaningless.

But Russian researchers also plan to use the dive to help map the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. Moscow claims the ridge is an extension of the Eurasian continent, and therefore part of Russia‘s continental shelf under international law.

The United Nations has rejected Moscow‘s claim, citing a lack of evidence, but Russia is set to resubmit it in 2009. If recognized, the claim would give Russia control of more than 460,000 square miles, representing almost half of the Arctic seabed E-mail to a friend

Canada flexes military muscles in Arctic

Army training centre and new deepwater port key elements of plan

August 11, 2007

Alexander Panetta
Canadian Press

RESOLUTE BAY, Nu.–Canada will build two new military facilities within contested Arctic waters to bolster its sovereign claim over the fabled Northwest Passage, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday.

The Canadian Forces will create a new army training centre and a deepwater port at distant points of the Arctic archipelago that has been coveted for centuries as a possible trade route to Asia.

“Protecting national sovereignty, the integrity of our borders, is the first and foremost responsibility of a national government, a responsibility which has too often been neglected,” Harper said, citing what he called the “first principle of Arctic sovereignty: use it or lose it.”

The prime minister made the announcement barely 600 kilometres from the magnetic North Pole in one of the coldest settlements on Earth, the frigid hamlet of Resolute Bay – with a midsummer temperature of just 2C.

He also announced that a new deep-sea port will be built for navy and civilian purposes on the north end of Baffin Island, in the abandoned zinc-mining village of Nanisivik. It’s hoped the installations will bolster Canada‘s ownership claim to the waters and natural resources of the Northwest Passage, a claim disputed by countries including the United States, Japan, and the entire European Union.

The new port location, more than 1,000 nautical miles from the Arctic hub of Iqaluit, was chosen for its strategic location at the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage.

The construction cost for the port is pegged at up to $100 million.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2007
3:34 MECCA TIME, 0:34 GMT

Canada asserts Arctic sovereignty

The Canadian prime minister has embarked on a three-day trip across the Arctic region to assert his country’s sovereignty over the resource-rich territory.

Stephen Harper vowed to pump in billions of dollars and increase military activity in the Arctic Circle to defend what he says is Canadian territory.

The trip, which had been planned for months, comes one week after a Russian research submarine planted a flag on the ocean floor, about 3km below the surface.

Canada and the US have dismissed the Russian flag-planting as legally meaningless.

Peter McKay, the Canadian foreign minister, said last week: “Look this isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say ‘we are claiming this territory’.”

Economic and strategic factors have seen Russia, Canada, the US, Norway and Denmark competing to secure sub-surface rights to the Arctic seabed.

Oil and gas

One study by the US Geological Survey estimates that up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas lies in the arctic seabed.

Harper said on Thursday: “All Canadians need to know that there is a convergence of environment, economic and strategic factors in this frontier that will have a critical impact on the future of our country.”

Canada plans to beef up its presence in the arctic by building naval ports and increasing patrols of key passage ways.

“Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it,” the prime minister added.

A disputed Northwest Passage running below the North Pole from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic archipelago is also becoming an attractive shipping route as global warming melts the ice and exposes unexplored resources.

Commercial ships can shave off some 4,000 km from Europe to Asia compared with the current routes through the Panama Canal.

In 1984, Denmark caused a stir by raising a flag on Hans Island, one of the islands south of the North Pole, buried a bottle of brandy at the base of the flagpole and left a note saying “Welcome to the Danish island”.

Two years ago, the dispute erupted again when Canada‘s defence minister set foot on the island while troops hoisted the Maple Leaf flag.

Denmark sent a letter of protest to Ottawa, while the Canadians and Danes took out competing Google ads, each proclaiming sovereignty over the rock.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E06691D2-0B7D-4CA7-A692-A43BC9DBB01D.htm

http://www.thestar.com/ArcticInPeril/article/277429

The Arctic has immense oil reserves and mineral wealth, but Canada has been slow to protect its northern sovereignty

Nov 18, 2007 04:30 AM

Ed Struzik
Atkinson Fellow

CHURCHILL, Man.–In the fall of 1998, a Russian IL-76 flew over the North Pole to the tiny sub-Arctic town of Churchill on the shores of western Hudson Bay.

Mike Lawson, who was on airport duty, remembers it well.

“We don’t get big Russian planes like that in Churchill,” he says of the Il-76, an unforgettably large cargo plane that is even bigger than the C-130 Hercules used by the Canadian military. “In fact, in the 18 years I’ve been here, I’ve seen only one other like it.”

Even more unusual was the pilot switching off his landing lights the moment he hit the tarmac – despite blowing snow and marginal visibility.

The crew members were spotted drinking beer at Gypsies, a popular restaurant, at 10 a.m. the next morning, but they didn’t stay long. A Bell 206 helicopter landed at Churchill that day, and the Russians drove back to the airport, dropped the plane’s cargo doors, loaded the helicopter and took off.

“Just like that,” says Lawson. “No one was there to ask questions or inspect documents. It makes you wonder who’s guarding our back door.”

It turns out Canadian intelligence officials were aware of the flight of the IL-76 and monitored its return to a region of Russia known for organized crime. Whether they let the Russians arrive and depart unfettered for intelligence purposes, or whether they were powerless to intervene, no one will say.

For Col. Pierre Leblanc, commander of Canada’s northern forces at the time, the significance of the incident became clear the following year when a Chinese research ship, armed with machine guns, showed up unannounced at the tiny Inuit community of Tuktoyaktuk, ostensibly to meet a Chinese tour guide who had claimed refugee status in 1993.

If Canada‘s back door is vulnerable to suspicious entries like these two incidents, Leblanc wondered, what might it be like in 20 or 30 years if climate change melts sea ice sufficiently to open the country’s Arctic waterways. Could the military or the Canadian Coast Guard stop a rogue ship if it took a run through the Northwest Passage to save 9,000 kilometres of ocean travel? Or stop a tanker from taking a load of fresh water from an Arctic river or lake?

Could Transport or Environment Canada clean up an oil or fuel spill if a tanker like the Exxon Valdez was damaged by ice and spilled its cargo? And what about a ship that might be trying to smuggle in illegal immigrants?

To answer those questions, Leblanc set up the Arctic Security Interdepartmental Working group. Representatives from the military, the RCMP, CSIS, Foreign Affairs, Revenue Canada and Immigration meet biannually to assess Arctic security issues.

Eight years later, Leblanc, now retired but still very much involved in the sovereignty and security debate, is still looking for the answers to an issue that made headlines recently when Russians, Danes and Americans – all of whom dispute Canada’s claims over the Arctic and its immense oil reserves and mineral wealth – made loud forays into Canadian waters.

For Leblanc, the unannounced passing of a U.S. submarine in 2006 through or very near Canadian waters – no one in Canada knows for certain– was proof that Canada does not have control over the Arctic.

In fact, the back door is still so wide open that a Romanian man who had been kicked out of the country was able to get back in the summer of 2006, taking a six-metre boat roughly 1,000 kilometres from Greenland to Grise Fiord, Canada‘s northernmost civilian community. His arrest, and the apprehension of two Turkish sailors who jumped ship in Churchill later in November, had more to do with alert civilians than they did with the country’s ability to monitor what’s happening in the polar world.

Military and intelligence officials agree similar incidents are bound to increase as climatic changes in the Arctic make it easier to navigate through this part of the world.

The Center for Naval Analyses, a private consultant to the U.S. government, warned earlier this year that geopolitical upheaval caused by climate change could create new havens for terrorists, trigger waves of illegal immigration and disrupt oil supplies. In the centre’s report, retired admiral Donald Pilling, the former vice-chief of U.S. naval operations, noted that neither Canada nor the United States has the military capability to handle threats in the Northwest Passage.

“As the Arctic ice continues to recede, we’re going to see a lot more people and a lot more ships trying to get in,” agrees Rob Huebert, an Arctic expert at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies in Calgary. “Unless we’re prepared to prove that we can control what we claim, we’re going to be in for serious trouble.”

It was late August and Huebert had just returned from Baffin Island in Nunavut, where Operation Nanook – the largest and most ambitious military exercise ever in the Arctic – had just ended. According to one top military official, Operation Nanook was supposed to “show the world we’ll be watching if they trespass on Canada‘s Arctic.”

What the world saw was that even when the military stages a scenario – in which it intercepts a foreign vessel en route to the Arctic to meet a plane smuggling narcotics from Mexico – it couldn’t pull it off cleanly. Dense fog, cellphones that didn’t work and other equipment failures foiled the best efforts of a CF-18, a Navy submarine, Aurora surveillance aircraft, the Coast Guard, Inuit Rangers and the RCMP, all working together.

Huebert is gracious in describing this exercise, and another problem-plagued one last summer that left a Twin Otter stuck in mud on the edge of a tundra cliff. “These are important baby steps that are absolutely necessary.”

But he says Operation Nanook showed just how far Canada needs to go before it can prove to the rest of the world that it can stop trespassers.

“To do this in August in the southern part of the Arctic near Iqaluit, which has an airport, RCMP base and other infrastructure, is one thing,” says Huebert. “But to do it in February or March in some remote part of the Northwest Passage where there is no port nearby would be the true test of an Arctic nation.”

Operation Nanook was not Canada‘s first troubled attempt at an Arctic military exercise.

Operation Narwhal, a joint exercise between Canadian Forces Northern Area and Maritime Forces Atlantic personnel, took place in July/August 2002. But while the military was engaged in this exercise, the Danish government sent a frigate to Hans Island to erect a flag and lay down a plaque claiming ownership of the tiny, barren island, which Canada had already claimed.

If Canadians need to be reminded why something must be done soon, says Huebert, they should look at Russia‘s recent planting of a territorial flag on the seabed at the North Pole and Imperial Oil and Exxon Mobil’s $585-million bid for development rights in the Beaufort Sea this summer.

“It’s not just the Danes planting a flag on Hans Island,” he says. “The Arctic is becoming a big-league playing field that’s destined to become a much busier place now that the ice is melting. If we’re going to be serious players in the Arctic, we’ve got to get out of this minor-league mentality.

“Climate change isn’t going to reverse itself. The Russians aren’t just playing around, and the American oil companies wouldn’t be spending all that money if they didn’t think that this was the place to do business.”

Twice, the Canadian government has tried to allay public concern about the country’s ability to protect its Arctic sovereignty by proposing to build nuclear-powered icebreakers. Both times, it backed out because of the high costs, and because public interest in the issue waned.

Now Prime Minister Stephen Harper is proposing to construct five to eight Arctic naval patrol vessels, refurbish a seaport at Nanisivik in the Northwest Passage, and set up a military training base at Resolute.

Michael Byers, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia, applauds the idea of the port and training centre. But like many others, including most Inuit leaders, he’s critical of the plan to spend $3.1 billion on navy patrol boats that have only a very limited capability for travelling through the ice-infested waters of the Arctic.

The Canadian government would be wiser, he says, to use that money to build two world-class icebreakers for the Coast Guard.

“Unlike the five to eight ice-strengthened patrol ships, these ships “could go anywhere, anytime,” says Byers.

“We’re not going to get into a gunfight if the Russians sail into our waters. What we need in the North is a civilian force like the Coast Guard, which did very well in August working with the RCMP to intercept those Norwegian cowboys who tried to sail through the Passage with two people undercover.”

Unlike the Navy, which has almost no experience in the Arctic, the Coast Guard has a long history in the North. In 1994, the icebreaker Louis St. Laurent, flagship of the Coast Guard fleet, made history when it sailed to the North Pole. Nowadays, the Louis, the Sir Wilfred Laurier, the Amundsen and other ships in the fleet often do double duty as scientific research vessels.

But like most Coast Guard ships, the Louis is showing its age. Built in 1969 and completely refitted between 1988 and 1993, it’s been repaired and tweaked so many times that veterans of the service now refer to her as the “Joan Rivers of the fleet.”

Rob Huebert is all for reinvesting in the Coast Guard but says there will be more than enough work for both Navy patrol boats and Coast Guard icebreakers in the future. “Climate change, rising resource prices, international politics and the development of new technologies are making it easier and more attractive to exploit the Arctic.”

“Samsung Industries of South Korea is currently building several 120,000-tonne vessels that are designed to carry oil and gas from the Russian Arctic. There’s no reason to think that other countries couldn’t build or use these ships to carry oil and gas from northern Canada and Alaska.”

Pierre Leblanc agrees that having both Coast Guard icebreakers and Navy patrol ships (with more icebreaking capabilities than the ones being proposed) would be ideal. But if cost becomes an issue, as he suspects it might, he believes the resources should go to a Coast Guard Service that not only has powerful new icebreakers but also the firepower to enforce a new mandate that includes sovereignty and security. He says Canada also needs an Arctic undersea surveillance system that can detect submarines.

“Think of the Spanish trawler that was illegally fishing in Canadian waters on the East Coast a few years ago. It was only after a few shots were fired in front of that ship that the captain realized Canada was deadly serious about stopping him. That’s the kind of firepower and mandate we need to assert our sovereignty over the Arctic.”

Leblanc warns that the Canadian government no longer has the luxury of time to sit back and consider its options.

“Consider the latest report which shows that ice coverage in the Arctic this summer is now at the lowest point in recent history. The possibility of an oil spill or a terrorist or a drug smuggler exploiting our back door is no longer theoretical. It is a real threat. Canada needs to be prepared.”

http://www.nationalpost.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=541738

Greenland summit to discuss carve-up of Arctic

Kim McLaughlin, Reuters Published: Monday, May 26, 2008

COPENHAGEN — Officials from five Arctic coastal countries will meet in Greenland this week to discuss how to carve up the Arctic Ocean, which could hold up to one-quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States are squabbling over much of the Arctic seabed and Denmark has called them together for talks in its self-governing province to avert a free-for-all for the region’s resources.

Russia angered the other Arctic countries last year by planting a flag on the seabed under the North Pole in a headline-grabbing gesture that some criticised as a stunt.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller and the premier of Greenland’s government, Hans Enoksen, will meet the Norwegian and Russian foreign ministers Jonas Gahr Stoere and Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn at the two-day conference opening on Wednesday in the town of Ilulissat.

The issue has gained urgency because scientists believe rising temperatures could leave most of the Arctic ice-free in summer months in a few decades’ time.

This would improve drilling access and open up the Northwest Passage, a route through the Arctic Ocean linking the Atlantic and Pacific that would reduce the sea journey from New York to Singapore by thousands of miles.

Under the 1982 U.N. Law of the Sea Convention, coastal states own the seabed beyond existing 200 nautical mile (370 km) zones if it is part of a continental shelf of shallower waters.

Some shelves stretch hundreds of miles before reaching the deep ocean floor, which belongs to no state. While the rules aim to fix clear geological limits for shelves’ outer limits, they have created a tangle of overlapping Arctic claims.

“The Law of the Sea Convention will basically give most of the Arctic Ocean bed to the five countries, but it is also likely that there will be two smaller areas that will not be controlled by any country,” said Lars Kullerud, president of the University of the Arctic, an international cooperative network based in the circumpolar region.

Countries around the ice-locked ocean are rushing to stake claims on the Polar Basin seabed and its hydrocarbon treasures made more tempting by rising oil prices and have taken their arguments to the United Nations.

Despite shrinking ice cover, it will be decades before it is possible to harvest oil outside the already established 200 nautical miles.

Mr. Kullerud said it was likely the process would produce areas where countries agree to disagree on mutual borders and that would fall under joint stewardship until agreement was reached.

Environmental groups have criticised the scramble for the Arctic and called for a treaty similar to that regulating the Antarctic, which bans military activity and mineral mining.

Denmark has urged all those involved to abide by U.N. rules on territorial claims and hopes to sign a declaration that the United Nations would rule on the disputes. Both it and Norway have said there is no need for a special treaty.

Besides territorial claims, the countries also plan to discuss cooperation on accidents, maritime security and oil spills.

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