PAME Work Plan

Senior officials from the Arctic Council’s eight Member States and six indigenous Permanent Participant organizations (PPs) met in Juneau in preparation for the upcoming Fairbanks Ministerial meeting, which will take place in May 2017. PAME participated in the meeting and presented on its work.

The picture on the right shows six current Working Group Chairs, five current Working Group executive secretaries, and two incoming Working Group Chairs, preparing to assume their duties. From left to right, Jens-Peter Holst Andersen, Ulrik Westman, Bernard Funston, Lars-Otto Reiersen, Soffía Guðmundsdóttir (PAME Executive Secretary), Renée Sauvé (PAME Chair), Tom Barry, Patti Bruns, Martin Forsius, Reidar Hindrum, Amy Merten, Pekka Shemeikka, and Roberta Burns.

Below is a press release from the Arctic Council after the meeting.

---

Juneau, Alaska, U.S.A.
Thursday, 9 March 2017

Senior officials from the Arctic Council’s eight Member States and six indigenous Permanent Participant organizations (PPs) met in Juneau in preparation for the upcoming Fairbanks Ministerial meeting, which will take place on 11 May 2017.

"At this week's meeting we reviewed the impressive body of work completed by the Working Groups and Task Forces over the past two years. These initiatives underlined the significant and growing role the Arctic Council plays in the sustainable development and environmental protection of the Arctic, and its work to improve the lives of those in Arctic communities. The meeting also leaves us poised for a successful Ministerial meeting in May, when the Chairmanship of the Council will transfer from the United States to Finland," said Ambassador David Balton, Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials.

At this meeting, the Senior Arctic Officials approved and welcomed a wide array of projects and reports of the Council’s Working Groups and Task Forces in preparation for the upcoming Ministerial meeting, including:

• The “State of the Arctic Marine Biodiversity Report,” a comprehensive report on the status and trends of marine biodiversity and monitoring in Arctic marine areas,
• The “Arctic Protected Areas Indicator Report,” an inventory of terrestrial and marine protected areas that summarizes the status and trends towards achieving global protected area targets,
• The “Arctic Regional Reception Facilities Plan,” a proposed waste management plan for ship-generated wastes intended to help the Arctic States meet their obligations under the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and standards linked to the new Polar Code,
• Survey results and policy recommendations on the OneHealth approach,
• A searchable database of equipment assets available for response to emergencies in the Arctic,
• An update of the report “Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic,” and
• A project to reduce emissions of black carbon from a diesel-fueled, off-grid power source at a reindeer farm in the Russian Arctic.

Mr. Kitack Lim, Secretary-General of the IMO, also attended the meeting, providing an update on the IMO’s Polar Code. The Arctic Council Observers also delivered brief remarks during the meeting.

At the meeting, Finland unveiled the program for its 2017-2019 Chairmanship of the Arctic Council, which focuses on addressing the effects of climate change and fostering sustainable development. The proposed priorities include environmental protection, meteorological cooperation, connectivity, and education in the Arctic.

The PAME Working Group met for the PAME I-2017 meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark on January 29-February 1. As per usual, the day before the meeting was reserved for expert group meetings on the topics of shipping, marine protected areas, the Ecosystem Approach and Resource and Development.

Almost 80 people participated in the biggest PAME WG meeting in history.

The meeting was hosted by the Kingdom of Denmark and was honoured to receive welcoming remarks from Hanne Fugl Eskjær, Senior Arctic Official of Kingdom of Denmark and Lida Skifte Lennert, Head of Representation from Greenland.

Among topics was finalisation of what projects to include in the PAME 2017-2019 Work Plan. Other topics included:

• Framework for a Pan-Arctic Network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)
• Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment, follow up
• Arctic Offshore Resource Exploration and Development 
• Ecosystem Approach to Management
• Preparations for the 2017 Ministerial Meeting

The meeting report from the PAME I-2017 meeting can be accessed here. It includes the Records of Decisions from the meeting, the list of participants and the meeting agenda.

PAME I-2017 meeting report.

The co-leads of PAME's Shipping Expert Group took part in a communication seminar in Korea in December. The seminar between PAME and Korean experts took place as a part of the 2016 Arctic Partnership Week at the Korea Maritime Institute in Busan.

PAME's shipping expert group is co-led by USA and Canada. Peter Oppenheimer (NOAA) and Drummond Fraser (Transport Canada) presented PAME's work in Korea and took part in discussions on related topics.

The PAME presentation included an overview of PAME's shipping related work in recent years and next steps, including a presentation on the Arctic Ship Traffic Data project.

Click here to download the presentation.


Click here to download the Seminar report.

The Korean Maritime Institute (KMI) has translated into Korean the 2015 Progress Report on Implementation of the 2009 Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA) Report Recommendations which is the third biennial effort by the Arctic Council’s Working Group on the Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment to document and track progress in implementing the 17 recommendations in the AMSA Report approved by Arctic Council Ministers.

This translation contributes to increased awareness and outreach of tracking  the progress of Arctic shipping related initiatives within the Arctic Council and demonstrates increased collaborative efforts by PAME with an Arctic Council observer state.

Click here to download the document.

 

The PAME I 2016 meeting was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in the beginning of February. The meeting gathers the working groups delegates from the eight Arctic Council member states, permanent participants, observer states and invited experts. Around 70 people participated in the meeting and in expert groups meetings.

Click here to download the PAME I 2016 meeting report.

The meeting produces a report stating the Records of decisions (RoDs). They also indicate status of specific projects and next steps. The meeting report includes the RoDs, the list of participants, the meeting agenda and the list of documents at the meeting.

Click here to download the PAME I 2016 meeting report.

Four PAME expert groups met and worked on specific issues in Stockholm, the Shipping expert group, the Marine Protected Areas expert group, the Oil and Gas contact group and the joint Ecosystem Approach to management expert group. The expert group on Arctic Shipping Traffic Data was also represented, working on its project on collecting ship traffic data. The expert groups met on Sunday, the PAME meeting was held on Monday through Wednesday. Many delegates also particpated in the Arctic Council Task Force on Arctic Marine Cooperation, held on Thursday and Friday.

The picture below is from the PAME meeting in Stockholm, courtesy of Dana Eidsness:

Representatives from the eight Arctic States and the Permanent Participants (six organizations representing Arctic Indigenous peoples) met in Anchorage, Alaska on October 20-22, 2015 to advance the work of the Arctic Council.

This first plenary meeting of the Council during the U.S. Chairmanship (2015-2017) addressed:

• The Council’s work on black carbon and methane;
• Adaptation to Arctic change, including the large-scale project “Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic”;
• Arctic biodiversity, including implementation of the recommendations contained in the landmark “Arctic Biodiversity Assessment” (2013) and consideration of Arctic ecosystem services;
• Best practices for small communities to prevent, prepare for, or respond to natural or human-caused accidents in the Arctic;
• Efforts to reduce the incidence of suicide among Arctic Indigenous peoples;
• The Council’s work on the Arctic Ocean, including the Arctic Marine Strategic Plan 2015-2025; and
• Follow-up work to the Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic, signed in 2013 (MOSPA).

The six Working Groups and three current Task Forces of the Arctic Council support much of this work through their research and assessments.

More wide-ranging discussions also covered:

• The Council’s work on climate change and oceans;
• The ways in which Traditional and Local Knowledge (TLK) is considered and used in the Council’s work;
• Strengthening the Council’s work by defining how the Council relates to external bodies; and
• Strengthening the capacity of the six Permanent Participant organizations to engage in, and contribute to, the Council’s work at all levels.

Senior Arctic Officials (SAOs) used the occasion to approve a groundbreaking white paper on safe operation of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for scientific data collection in the Arctic, as well as a collection of educational toolkits for children, which are directed towards the next generation of scientists and policymakers. In addition, SAOs made a final decision to move the Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat from its present location in Copenhagen to Tromsø, Norway.

Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials Ambassador David Balton said: “The Arctic Council is rising to the challenge of meeting significantly greater expectations.  With attention on the Arctic region at an all-time high, this meeting demonstrated the ability of the Arctic Council to bring together Arctic States, Arctic Indigenous representatives and a large number of Observers to work toward a safer, healthier and sustainable Arctic.”

In addition to the official agenda, the week of the Arctic Council meetings included many complementary events hosted by the Alaska Arctic Council Host Committee and other organizations in Anchorage and around Alaska.

PAME has released a meeting report from its working group meeting in Tromsö. The meeting was held in September and 64 participants discussed numerous topics over the course of three days.

In addition, expert groups had side meetings in conjunction with the meeting, and a joint session with three other AC working groups was held for a half day.

The meeting report lists updates on PAME's activities, decisions from the meeting, the agenda and the list of participants.

Click here to download the meeting report.

The PAME Working Group is meeting in Tromsö, Norway, this week. Over 60 delegates will take part in the meeting, while numerous other meetings take part, including within PAME expert groups.

This week sees an unprecedented gathering of four of the Arctic Council’s six Working Groups at the same time. The others are ACAP (Arctic Contaminants Action Program), AMAP (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme), CAFF (Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna).

While the four Working Groups will meet in parallel for much of the week, all four will come together for a session on Wednesday to discuss cross-cutting issues. The Chair of Senior Arctic Officials, Amb. David Balton, will take part in the joint meeting on Wednesday, including offering welcoming remarks.

The program for the ShipArc 2015 conference in Malmö later in August has been released. The event will take place from the 25-27th of August and boasts an exciting lineup of presentation, lectures and workshops.

Click here to download the program.

PAME is one of the orginising partners, along with the International Maritime Organization and the World Maritime University.

The opening address will be delivered by Mr. Koji Sekimizu, IMO Secretary-General and key note speakers include Dr. David Carlson, Dr. Lawson Brigham, Mr. Arsenio Dominguez and Dr. David VanderZwaag. The first day is devoted to key note speakers on varios different topics. The day will conclude with an icebreaker reception and a poster session.

The second day will feature six themes:

• The Polar Code: Implementation & Compliance Assurance
• Beyond the Polar Code
• Arctic Governance
• Sustainable Arctic Business Development
• Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment
• Training, Capacity-Building, Science & Research

The day will conclude with a summary from each session and all sessions will have panel discussions.

The third day will highlight the key points on the conference through rapporteurs and a panel discussions.

Click here to download the program.