A dispute between the Arctic nations

Mar 26, 2007 11:21 GMT  ·  By

The melting of the polar ice caps due to global warming has accelerated something perhaps unexpected: an international race for oil, fish, diamonds and shipping routes.

The frozen north may look barren and uninhabited now, but the latest reports reveal that the northern ice cap is warming faster than the rest of the planet and ice is shrinking quickly.

This is a catastrophe for the Arctic ecosystem, including its polar bears and other wildlife icons, but also for Arctic culture of the Inuit populations whose way of life is connected on frozen waters.

Many see in this an eased access to riches waiting to be pulled out from the deep, and the potential of timesaving sea lanes that could induce changes in the shipping industry the way the Suez or Panama Canals did when they were opened.

The U.S. Geological Survey calculated the Arctic possesses as much as 25 % of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. Russia estimates the potential of minerals in its slice of the Arctic at about $2 trillion.

This started a scramble for sovereignty over these suddenly priceless (till now frozen) seas.

No matter how the climate behaves, oil and gas exploration in the Arctic is moving full speed ahead. State-controlled Norwegian oil company Statoil ASA is gonna start gas exploration from its offshore Snoehvit field in December, the first one in the Barents Sea, employing advanced remote-controlled equipment on the ocean floor. "Most petroleum companies are now focusing research and exploration on the far north. Russia is developing the vast Shkotman natural gas field off its Arctic coast, and Norwegians hope their advanced technology will find a place there", said Alan Murray, an analyst with the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

Ice melting could open the North Pole region to easy navigation for five months a year, shortening sailing time from Germany to Alaska by 60 % on a northern Russia route instead of the Panama Canal. The Northwest Passage, though northern Canada, could open through the channels of Canada's Arctic islands and decrease the voyage from Europe to the Far East.

This led to the absurd conflict between Canada and Denmark for the Hans Island, at the entrance to the Northwest Passage.

The half-square-mile rock, 13 % the size of New York's Central Park, is located between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Danish Greenland, and for more than 20 years has been a subject of a silent conflict.

In August 2005, the Russian Akademik Fyodorov was the first ship to reach the North Pole without the help of an icebreaker. The Norwegian shipyard Aker Yards is building new vessels that can sail through heavier ice.

Till recently, scientists thought it would take a century for the ice to melt, but recent data showed this could occur in 10-15 years, provoking a wave of claims from United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway over their stakes in the Arctic.

Norway and Russia share the Barents Sea; the U.S. and Russia the Beaufort Sea; the U.S. and Canada the Northwest Passage; and even Alaska and Canada's Yukon have a dispute over their offshore boundary.

Canada, Russia and Denmark claim waters up to the North Pole, as they regard the seabed as a part of their continental shelf under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Canada claims the Northwest Passage as its territory, while United States insists the waters are neutral.

The increased human activity puts at risk these environments. This means the threat of oil spills and more alien organisms, a risk to indigenous life forms.

Fish stocks crucial to some regions are moving to more northern waters, into another country's fishing grounds. Russian and Norwegian fishermen already capture salmon much farther north than the species' former range. "It is potentially very dramatic for fish stocks. They could move toward the North Pole, which would make sovereignty very unclear," said Dag Vongraven, an environmental expert at the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Currently, there is a Russian - Norwegian dispute over fishing rights around the Arctic Svalbard Islands. "Even though they say it is about fish, it is really about oil," said an Norwegian oil-expert. "Everybody is talking about the potential for minerals, diamonds, oil and gas, but we mustn't forget that people live there, all the way across the Arctic, like Saami and Inuits. They've always been there and they have a major role to play," warned Tristan Pearce, a research associate at the University of Guelph's Global Environmental Change Group in Canada,