Hlýnun jarðar kallar á nýjar lausnir - ráðherra með ræðu á Arctic Frontiers

Hlýnun jarðar kallar á nýjar lausnir á norðurslóðum var inntakið í ræðu Steingríms J. Sigfússonar á ráðstefnunni Arctic Frontiers sem haldin var í Tromsø í Noregi. Benti hann í því samhengi á breytt göngumynstur fiskistofna.

Upptaka af ræðu Steingríms (ath. hún hefst á 30 mín.)
1301-ArcticFrontiers.SJS.Tromso---net  (PP-glærur)

Ministers, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
It gives me great pleasure to have the opportunity to be here with you today and give you some reflections on Arctic issues under the banner of „Geopolitics & Marine Production in a Changing Arctic“. Let me first state that we want to define our country as an Arctic Coastal State.  

The title of my talk today comes from a book by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the Canadian visionary arctic explorer.  He was born  in 1879  to his Icelandic parents who had emigrated from Iceland to Manitoba two years earlier  – which was not an uncommon choice for Icelanders during those years of extreme hardship caused by extreme winters with ice covering the sea for months as well as volcanic eruptions in Iceland that really devastated large areas of the grazing land.

His book that was published in  1922  had the subtitle: “the story of five years in Polar regions“. At the time the title of his book  was taken to be very provocative as the general idea of the Arctic was at the time, and acually still is,  that it  is not a very friendly place. Vast, covered with ice, uninhabited, with violent climate. Even my country, on the southern edge of the Arctic proper, was not so long ago classified by learned scolars as being on the “edge of the inhabiable world“.

Of course all this is changing. With fast advances in technological developments,  particularly better transportation and communications the Arctic regions and their inhabitants are finally coming to the consciousness of the world.  Nowadays, every man, woman and child knows that global warming is causing extensive melting of the icecap, a fact that is undeniable. This of course involves many threats to the ecology of the region but also involves a lot of opportunities. Not only does melting of the ice cap open up new shipping lanes. The area holds huge potential natural resources ranging from minerals, hydrocarbons and marine life for food production.  Then, often forgotten is the fact that the Arctic is a home to some 4 million people who have normal aspirations towards economic progress that enables them not only to carve out subsistence livelihoods for themselves but to be able to be a full partner on the world stage.

Back to my own country.
The name Iceland of course defines its place within the Arctic – and the iconic polar bear has always been very much ingrained in our folklore and culture. Yet, these animals only come as visitors to our country, usually as passengers on driftice from Greenland. And when they come they always cause a media sensation as you can see from the newspaper clip shown here.  

In my view the Arctic Council with its eight members has evolved in a very positive way from being a discussion forum towards becoming a regional, treaty based organization. A permanent office here in Tromsö is now established, with its first director being Mr. Magnús Jóhannesson, the long time  Permanent Secretary of the Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources in Iceland.

As Iceland now has signed formal contracts for oil exploration  north-east of the country, cooperation in the field of preventing oil pollution becomes of paramount importance for us in the years to come.  I see a growing role for my country in servicing what I call the "Energy Triangle", i.e. the Icelandic area south of Jan Mayen, the Norwegian part of it and the oil exploration areas on the East coast of Greenland. Strong anti-pollution measures as well as clear and strong measures to hinder accidents must come first, before possible oil starts to be extracted.

The Arctic Council is working intensively within its numerous working groups on the problems in the Arctic associated with various issues such as global warming, pollutants, ocean acidification etc. Iceland has taken very active role in this work and I would like to mention that the Arctic Council working group based in Akureyri, Iceland on Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) is undertaking the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Another permanent Arctic Council working group is also based in Akureyri, working on the Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment (PAME), an issue of fundamental importance to the region that is so reliant on the resources of the sea.

But as we know, ideas change fast in a fast moving world. Not so long ago, and certainly during the lifetimes of many of us here today, common thinking was that the world´s natural resources were unlimited and that there was little need for constraint in their exploitation. Fortunately, we have learned better and now we do share a much stronger sense of how our Common Future is interlinked and how dependent we are on the actions of others. In 1992 the Earth Summit in Rio adopted the concept of Sustainable Development as a goal.  The Rio Declaration really did present a new vision.  As for use of living marine resources that still form the backbone of the economy of my country, the ideas from Rio really did change the way in which we manage our fisheries in Iceland. Most fishermen now accept that fishing must be effectively constrained to avoid overfishing.  And now most fishermen are acting upon the “ecosystem approach to fisheries management“  which means that fishing activities must take into account the interests of the whole ecosystem – and not only the needs of us humans.
This is the foundation of our task in the near future: How we can adapt our management regimes to the changing ecosystem, effectively and fast enough so as not to cause damage to the environment.

Therefore I want to give you a brief account of how the environmental changes are affecting the marine environment in our area and thus our livelihoods.

The fishing grounds around Iceland are rich, not least due to the positive impact of the mixing of warm and cold ocean currents, making ample nutrients available for supporting rich marine life. However, relatively small annual variations can generate substantial changes in ocean conditions and thereby the growth prospects for many important fish stocks. I will now go through some of the main changes in the next few slides.

For one, these water currents around Iceland cause huge geographical variations in temperatures which is clearly shown on this map from August 2007, where the temperature northwest of the island was -1°C, but to the southeast +10-11 °C.

Scientists see Iceland as an excellent large scale laboratory for studying the effects of climate change on marine life. Indeed, we have long records of changes in sea surface temperature. This figure shows fluctuations in the sea surface temperature north of Iceland since 1875 with temperatures ranging from 2-6°C, i.e. much greater fluctuations than have been predicted for the Iceland Sea due to global warming the next century or so.

So, during the last decade we were in a warm-water regime, similar to what was prevailing during the period 1920-1965. This has seriously influenced cold-water species like capelin, a key species in the ecosystem around Iceland which has decreased in abundance and changed its distribution and migration as you can see on this figure.

Another example. Here we see the dramatic changes in the distribution of haddock over a 12 year period. Here we see how haddock has changed its distribution from south to north. We have recorded similar changes for other species.  

And then the Atlantic mackerel. As all of you know this fish presents the most notable issue in this regard. The changing pattern for this species is really testing all the declaractions regarding the ecosystem approach, responsible fisheries management, international collaboration. Etc. In recent years this fish has markedly changed its migration patterns towards northern waters. Some 1,5 million tonnes have been entering our EEZ, not as passive guests but actively grazing,  true to their nature, and taking feed from other valuable fish stocks in our waters.
 
These maps show how the distribution of mackerel has changed between 1985 and 2004, now occupying feeding areas towards the coast of E. Greenland and far north towards the N. Norwegian waters.

I do hope that we will find a way in the near future as how to solve the mackerel dispute. Overfishing an important stock year after year is not acceptable. And we know that the eyes of the world are on us in this regard. 

It is clear that nature is changing its rules faster than ever and there is not much we can do about that.  Therefore we must create a mechanism, a method, by which we can adapt to these changes and ensure a fair distribution of the proceeds from migratory fish stocks.
We are all committed to a scientific approach in determining catches and in my view the “formula“ for settling such disputes should also be based on science. We must take many factors into consideration for this approach, such as movement of the stocks, feeding behaviour, spawning grounds, history of  catches etc. Yet, we should acknowledge at the outset that there will always be a political element in the final decision.

Iceland is willing to host a conference where politicians, scientists, officials and environmental NGOs would brainstorm over the challenges facing us all in this respect.   We would suggest Akureyri, our Arctic Centre in Iceland, for the venue. To me that could be an important step towards a mechanism on how we can solve disputes of this nature in the future. A science based, peaceful settlement among friends.

The changing migration pattern of the mackerel can at least partly be linked to much warmer sea surface water in the area between Greenland and Iceland and less so in northern NE Atlantic compared to the last two decades (dark red and yellow ), while competition for space and food has also been suggested by scientists as a likely causative factor.

Of course this is all the more important when we consider the predicted extensive fishing areas that will open up when ice-coverage in the Arctic decreases within not too distant future as we can see on this figure.

In closing
An environmentally conscious world population sees the Arctic as one of the last frontiers of unspoiled land on the planet.  We should be very cautious on how we treat this virgin part of our planet.  To me, exercising caution in the Arctic is not to be questioned. Past history shows that unconstrained access to natural resources has led to overexploitation and waste and even environmental disasters. The many cleanup and restoration programmes taking place around the globe today are a clear testament to our past failures in this respect. That means failure in governance, failure in resource management and failure in international collaboration: Mistakes that we must not repeat when dealing with the Arctic.

The Icelandic Parliament has recently laid down Iceland´s policy on Arctic matters. Some of which are the following:

• Iceland supports the Arctic Council as the main collaborative Forum in Arctic matters,
• Iceland wants to secure its position as an Arctic Costal State,
• We want to gather support for the idea of the Arctic as part of the High North,
• We want to  build on the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea for resolving disputes,
• We particularly want to strengthen collaboration with our closest neighbours, i.e. Greenland and the Faroe Islands,
• We want to secure rights of indigenous peoples living  in the High North and preserve their unique culture.
• Last but not least: Prevent, as far as possible, human-induced climate change and ensure that increased economic activity will contribute to sustainable utilisation of resources and preserve the fragile ecosystem.

 Iceland does have some unique strengths which we want to bring to the Arctic table. These are:

• •    Geothermal energy that can be found and developed in several Arctic areas.
• •    Hydro electric development.
• •    Fisheries
• •    Infrastructure, transportation and information technology
• And of course, the geographic position of Iceland and its societal features make the island an ideal service center for many future Arctic cooperative endeavours.

As we all know food security is an issue that is rising fast on the geopolitical agenda. It is estimated that the world will need some 70% more food by the middle of this century. Global food security is increasingly seen as a world peace issue for the simple reason that empty stomachs produce angry minds and a deep feeling of injustice. The international law on which marine governance is based, the  UN Convention of the Law of the Sea is clear about the use of living marine resources for food. If individual states cannot make full use of these resources themselves they have a clear obligation to allow others to come to catch the surplus. Given, of course, that this is done in accordance with a responsible management scheme. It is very unrealistic that the Arctic will be made a fully fledged sanctuary as some have suggested, when the marine resources now under the ice, will become accessible.

But, we now have the knowledge, the tools and the political will to make responsible use of these resources. Iceland looks forward to active collaboration with other member countries to make an example to the world of how this can be put in practice.

I do believe that the Arctic can become a pretty friendly place.  That conclusion would have pleased Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

Thank you for your attention.