Arctic Cooperation

The State Provincial Office of Lapland participates actively in international cooperation in the Arctic Areas through the Northern Forum and the Arctic Council. It is added by the cooperation in the North Calotte and Barents regions which are part of the Arctic area.

Northern Forum

The Northern Forum is a cooperation organisation of the northern regions in 7 countries. Member regions are from Russia, Japan, China, USA, Canada and Finland. It has 21 business members, for example Neste Oil Oyj, Kometos and Nokian Footwear from Finland.

Governor of Lapland, Hannele Pokka, served as the Chair for four years until June 2005. Governor of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug (Russia) is currently the Chair. The Vice Chairs are Governor of Lapland (Finland), President of Sakha Republic (Yakutia), Premier of Alberta (Canada), as well as Governor of Heilongjiang (China).

The main secretariat is situated in Anchorage, Alaska. 

The Northern Forum has nongovernemental organization position (NGO) in the United Nations and it is a permanent observer in the Arctic Council.

Projects

Basic operations model of the Northern Forum is to carry out projects. At the moment there are 10 - 15 projects going on. They are mainly connected to environment, sustainable development, communications, wellare, culture, education and research. The Northern Forum assists member regions to create commercial connections and gather information and contacts from member regions, northern areas and northern cooperation. 

Arctic Council

Arctic cooperation between states launched in the Environmental Conference in Rovaniemi, 1991. It started so called Rovaniemi Process. It lead to the establishment of the Arctic Council in 1996. USA, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Russia and Finland are member countries of the Arctic Council. There are also permanent participants representing aboriginal peoples and observers representing states and organisations. Norway is the Chair from 2006 to 2008.

Enhancement of sustainable development has strengthened during last years in addition to environment cooperation. This has brought activites connected to the development of businesses.

State Provincial Office of Lapland together with Sami Education Centre represents Finland in the development project for developing livelihoods of indigenous people. State Provincial Office of Lapland take part in Finnish background group activity, official- and ministerial meetings and in working group of sustainable development as well.

Other Arctic links

Arctic Centre
Circumpolar Universities Association
International Arctic Science Committee
Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region
Thule Institute
University of the Arctic
WWF International Arctic Programme
Northern Research Forum
Polar link Page

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