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CASR
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- Canadian Defence
Policy, Foreign Policy, & Canada-US Relations -
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In
Detail ——
Arctic Seabed – meridian method or sector solution
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Arctic Sovereignty – Oil & Gas Exploration
– Shipping Lanes – October 2007
Carving Up the Arctic Seabed
– Two Options : the 'Meridian' method or the 'Sector'
solution
Edited excerpts from an article published
by The New York Times newspaper *
Two Ways to Share the Arctic – the New 'Centre
of the World' for Northern Nations
1) The Meridian Method
2) The Sector
Solution Supported by Canada and Denmark
Supported by Norway and
Russia
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[CASR Editor :
For ancient Rome, the Mediterranean was the sea at the centre of the world. Now, the Arctic has become
the centre for the prosperous northern nations. It is the repository of the most valuable strategic resources found
on earth – oil, natural gas, diamonds, unspoilt vistas for city-dwellers seeking solitude and
spendor, and frozen stores of clean, fresh water. With a kitty of this size, even India and China are
trying to buy themselves a place at the table.
Apparently, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is fully aware that the true wealth of our nation lies north of the Arctic
Circle. Mr. Harper recently moved Jim Prentice, his quietly effective Minister of Northern Affairs, to a more
important, more senior portfolio: Industry Canada. But one thing must be settled before we can safely and securely
exploit the resources of our Arctic regions. Our claims to an 'extended' exclusive economic zone must be
accepted by the commission set up by the United Nations to adjudicate the terms laid out in the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). We are in competition with some of our closest allies: Denmark, which has already
ratified UNCLOS, and the United States, which
has not.
On the other side of the Arctic lies our greatest competitor, Russia, a country which has all the same natural
resources as Canada, only more of them. Coupled with this abundance of raw materials, is Russia's long
experience with polar exploration, and with the industrial extraction, refining, and export of natural resources in
the most difficult climates. Russia's foreign markets includes the EU and India – our market is
primarily the United States. We live in interesting times. What follows are excerpts from
an article that appeared in The New York Times in 2005.]
The US , Canada , Denmark (via
Greenland) , Norway , and Russia – All Stake Claims
The [ new claims on Arctic territory ] are already real enough for the four million people within the Arctic Circle,
including about 150,000 Inuit. "As long as it's ice," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, leader of a transnational
Inuit group, "nobody cares except us, because we hunt and fish and travel on that ice. However, the
minute it starts to thaw and becomes water, then the whole world is interested." A look at a map
of the globe, with the North Pole at its centre, explains why this new frontier matters. Some
countries that one might think of as being half a world apart appear as startlingly close
neighbours ... and, [as with all neighbours], the fences matter.
The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf will assess the
national claims
The Commission is composed of experts appointed by those countries that have already ratified the [Law of the Sea] treaty.
This commission will draw the boundaries based on geological studies of the
seabed itself. A country's exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, generally
extends 200 nm [ 370 km or 230 statute miles ] from its
shores. But, under Article 76 of UNCLOS, that zone can
be extended. Each nation must convince other
parties to the treaty that there is a 'natural prolongation' of its shelf beyond the 200-mile limit.
The shelf is the relatively shallow extension of the continental landmass to the point where the bottom drops into
the oceanic abyss. But in many places, the drop-off is a long, gentle slope. In other places, the
shelf is connected to submerged ridges that, if precisely mapped, might add thousands of
square miles to a country's exploitable seabed. With only fragments
of the Arctic surveyed – by icebreaker or nuclear
submarine – various countries are now mounting new mapping
expeditions to claim the most territory possible.
Denmark and Canada conduct a joint seabed mapping project of uncharted parts of the Arctic
In June 2006, Denmark and Canada announced that they would conduct
a joint surveying project of
uncharted parts of the Arctic Ocean near their coasts [north of Ellesmere Island and
Greenland. For more details and images from this 2007
expedition, visit the website of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.]
The Arctic Ocean is where experts foresee the most conflict. Only there do the boundaries of five nations
– Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and the United States – converge, the way
sections of an orange meet at the stem. (The three other northern nations, Iceland, Sweden and
Finland, do not have coasts on the Arctic Ocean.)
Increasingly, big corporations, the eight countries with Arctic footholds, and other nations farther
south are betting on the possibility of a great transformation. Energy-hungry China [and India have] set
up research stations on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. China has twice deployed its icebreaker Snow
Dragon, which normally works in Antarctica, to northern waters to conduct climate research. "The area does get
to be a bit crowded," said Peter Croker, chairman of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, which
assesses the claims.
The United States would like to claim a swath of
Arctic Seabed larger than California
The US government finances geological survey work, but it has not made any definitive move toward staking its claim
[because the US has not yet ratified the Law of the Sea]. "We need to be in the game, at the table, talking
about fisheries management, mineral extraction, freedom of navigation," said Admiral James D.
Watkins, a retired chief of naval operations who is chairman of the United
States Commission on Ocean Policy.
The University of New Hampshire in Durham is the home of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping. Scientists
are studying sonar scans of the seabed from a 2002 expedition on the United States Coast Guard
icebreaker [ USCGC Healy ] in waters north of Barrow, Alaska. Larry
Mayer, the Center's director, gave one journalist a joystick-driven, virtual tour of the
seabed two miles beneath the ice. The ocean appeared on a wall-size screen as a basin with ridges and valleys dropping into the depths around
the edges, representing oceanographers' best guess at the topography before
their [ most recent ] expedition.
Then Dr. Mayer pushed a button, adding depth data from the new survey, which had used innovative multibeam sonar.
Suddenly a giant underwater mountain sprouted up 10,000 feet where the old chart had shown only a vague bump.
"That's the new state of our knowledge," said Dr. Mayer, who named the undersea mountain, Healy,
after the US icebreaker. Such
physical features matter enormously to nations seeking to expand their undersea territory.
Treaty or no, territorial disputes ultimately imply questions about a country's ability to defend its interests.
Here, too, the United States has shown little urgency. Canada has acted more aggressively to
ensure its sovereignty over a fast-changing domain that it had
long neglected. Three years ago, Canada began patrolling the most remote
Arctic reaches with Army Reservists, called 'Rangers', a mostly Inuit force numbering about 1500 men.
[Update: Prime Minister Harper wants to increase the
number of Rangers by at least 900.]
Canada is also buying three new ships to patrol the Northwest Passage. The Canadian fleet of Twin Otters, the primary surveillance and transport
planes in the north since the 1960's, will be replaced [or
augmented] with bigger, faster transports. Canada's aim
is to tighten control of its territory, and to establish a strong posture
in any future talks about Arctic Sovereignty.
* First published in The New York Times on 10 October
2005. Authors: Clifford Krauss reported from Canada,
Steven Lee Myers from Russia, Andrew C. Revkin from
New Hampshire and Washington, and Simon Romero from
Norway. Craig Duff contributed reporting from Canada, Norway, Russia and Alaska.
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