It is very important that any decision regarding the issue of Arctic Ocean should be made in open, consultative forums involving all stakeholders. Foreign ministers and senior officials from Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the U.S. have attended the closed, invitation-only Arctic Ocean Conference in IIulissat, Greenland this week. In the meeting different ways were discussed in which nations bordering the Arctic can better co-ordinate efforts to manage the Arctic Ocean.
It is observed that the retreat of sea ice caused due to global warming opens new opportunities for the expansion of economic activity, such as commercial fishing, shipping, and oil and gas exploration and exploitation in the Arctic Ocean. This will definitely bring short-term benefits to the economies of Arctic coastal states and the expansion of economic activity can also trigger overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, pollution from ships and offshore extraction of oil and gas, oil spills, invasion of alien species carried by ships’ ballast water and other extremely harmful effects.
In the conference WWF urges the participants to discuss the urgent need for a new and stronger system for governance protecting the Arctic from such disaster and to save its vulnerable marine environment.
