IF WE LOSE the ARCTIC Finland’S Arctic Thinking from the 1980S to Present Day
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IF WE LOSE THE ARCTIC Finland's Arctic thinking from the 1980s to present day ARKTINEN KESKUS Lapin yliopisto Markku Heikkilä ARCTIC CENTRE University of Lapland ARKTINEN KESKUS Lapin yliopisto ARCTIC CENTRE University of Lapland IF WE LOSE THE ARCTIC Finland's Arctic thinking from the 1980s to present day ARKTINEN KESKUS Lapin yliopisto Markku Heikkilä ARCTIC CENTRE University of Lapland Rovaniemi, 2019 ARKTINEN KESKUS Lapin yliopisto ARCTIC CENTRE University of Lapland Text © Markku Heikkilä Publisher The Arctic Centre, University of Lapland Layout Annika Hanhivaara English translation Jenny Hakala Printed in Popa, Rovaniemi 2019 ISBN 978-952-337-133-0 (Pb. English) ISBN 978-952-337-134-7 (pdf English) CONTENTS Prologue 4 PARTI I Arctic Visions 1998. The origins and background of Arctic cooperation 6 ”Strategic Reserve” for the Future of Europe 7 The Hopes and Realities of the Barents Region 13 Finland Brings the Northern Dimension to the European Union 22 From the Mediterranean Sea to the Baltic Sea and towards the North 27 Gorbachev's Speech Launches Arctic Cooperation 31 Canada Is Searching for Itself and the Arctic Council Is Born 36 Negotiations without Success 43 A Moral Obligation for Humanity 47 The Northern Indigenous Peoples Step Forth 52 Southern Pollution Hits North 60 Researchers Want to Influence Politics 63 From Military Security to Comprehensive Security 67 The Only Arctic Environmental Organisation 73 The Northern Parliaments Want In 76 Towards Transatlantic Economic Cooperation 80 PART II The Leading Arctic Actor. Years 1998 – 2018 in Finnish Arctic politics 86 Prologue 87 What the Governments Want 88 The Long Slide of the Northern Dimension 93 Barents was overrun by the rise of the Arctic 98 After Finland’s Arctic Initiative 102 The First Arctic Chairmanship – Towards a New Awakening 108 Full Speed Ahead to a New Beginning 115 “Leading Actor in International Arctic Policy” 120 Finland Leads the Arctic Council: Hopes for a Summit 126 Around the Same Table, Almost 132 Epilogue 139 3 PROLOGUE IN ITS STRATEGY, FINLAND defnes itself as a completely Arctic country, but what has Fin- land wanted as an Arctic country? What actors have defned its policies and has it always had a policy? How was the Rovaniemi Process, that kick-started international Arctic cooperation, born? What happened to the Northern Dimension, and what kind of thinking led to Finland’s pro- posal for an Arctic Summit? Why does the government say that Finland is a leading Arctic actor and why does the President of Finland repeat the slogan “If we lose the Arctic, we lose the whole world”? Have Finland’s Arctic actions been steered by national economic interest, altruistic con- cern for the environment or some kind of combination of both? Who have made Finland’s Arctic policy and what has Finland strived for in internation- al circles? What did all this look like when it was taking place? You can fnd answers to these questions in this book. It tells Finland’s Arctic story from the end of the 1980s to the present – a thirty-year-arc. Most of the content is based on interviews and background conversations held for this book. Some is from scholarly materials, media articles, speeches and reports. Tere are also a lot of eyewitness accounts. During my professional career I have followed the formation of Arctic and Northern cooperation since their inception, frst as a reporter for the Oulu news- paper Kaleva and since 2010 as the Head of Science Communications at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi. Te frst part of this book is a kind of time capsule. It is an abridged version of my book from 1998: Arktiset visiot (Arctic visions), published by Pohjoinen (North) – a small publish- ing house owned by the newspaper Kaleva, my employer at the time. In the book I had de- scribed what happened in the Arctic and generally in northern cooperation until then, both in Finland and globally. I tried to fnd and articulate where the ideas originated from and how they developed. Te book could be considered a representative eyewitness account of those years. It has not been available in Finnish for a long time and was never translated into English. A similar book on the initial stages of Arctic cooperation has not been published elsewhere, and the in- terviews and eyewitness statements from that time could not be easily recovered any more. 4 For these reasons, this book deserves to resurface and provide perspective at a time when Finland is fnishing up its Chairmanship term at the Arctic Council. Te frst part of this book uses the 1998 book to tell where and why everything started. Some lines that were irrelevant for the current situation have been omitted in editing and the majority of the text remains as it was. It should thus be read in a twenty-year-old context. Te text does not include any afterthoughts or explanations from a contemporary perspective. As most of the original speeches and interviews are no longer available and citations are trans- lated from Finnish, there may be a discrepancy or two between the original and the translat- ed English version. Te second part of the book focuses on the development of Finnish Arctic policy from 1998 onwards, to the present. Tus, the starting points for the two parts difer from one an- other: while the frst focusses on northern cooperation as a whole from a Finnish perspective; the second part is centred towards Finland’s actions in the Arctic. Te international Arctic activity was so minimal still in the 1990s that it was possible to cover those in one small book. Afterwards the Arctic activity greatly expanded. Te frst part of the book does not include references. Since they were not noted in the 1998 book, they have not been added now either. However, the sources have been described in the text. Te second part of the book has references to literary sources. In addition, the contents are based on several background discussions that have not been identifed in the text. Te end result is a nonfction book for a general audience that sheds light on Arctic actions and not a scientifc work book based on academic research. It is meant to tell the story of Arctic thinking in Finland and make it tangible. Several people have helped make and publish this book, like Ville Cantell, Timo Koivuro- va, Marjo Laukkanen, Maija Myllylä, Outi Mähönen, Krittika Singh and Osmo Rätti. Special thanks to all those Arctic actors and experts who have lent their time for background discus- sions and interviews. Tey are not separately mentioned in this book, but without them the book could not have been born. Rovaniemi / Oulu, December 2018 Markku Heikkilä 5 PART I ARCTIC VISIONS 1998 THE ORIGINS AND BACKGROUND OF ARCTIC COOPERATION Part I is an abridged version of Arktiset visiot (Arctic Visions, published by Pohjoinen, Oulu 1998). 6 ”Strategic Reserve” for the Future of Europe ”STRATEGIC RESERVE” FOR THE FUTURE OF EUROPE IN THE YEAR 1998, it was estimated that the world population will exceed over six billion. Five billion was reached in 1987, four billion in 1974 and three billion in 1960 – in about for- ty years the number of people doubled but were using the same space. Tey needed their own share of food, work and energy. Population estimates for the year 2015 were between seven and eight billion people. Te demographics in the rich northern countries will not change considerably. Most of the popu- lation increase occurs in the parts of the globe called the “south”. It is also a political concept, which has come to mean poverty, weakness and a certain kind of threat. A majority of the earth’s population is born to struggle with an income of just a couple of dollars a day to get food, water and shelter. Some have money to spare. Te market for phones, refrigerators and cars has been growing as more and more people want to buy them. Similarly, cities are growing and in some of them the population is higher than the popula- tion of all the Nordic countries combined. All of this also has an efect on the future of the Earth’s northern regions. Tey cannot sep- arate themselves from the rest of the world. Tey feel the growing pressure in several ways. During the late winter of 1996 in Inuvik, Canada, near the oil reserves along the northern coast of the country, thousands of kilometres away from the larger cities, a taxi was sliding along an icy road on a tiny slope. Te driver was shaking his head. Six months earlier he had arrived from Egypt to a place with barely any forests, where houses are built on beams be- cause of frost heaving and there is a hotel styled as Eskimo Inn. Tere a man from the Nile got a job, driving a taxi in a small town with freezing weather. Te next taxi driver was from Sudan. Te end of the road is in Inuvik; you cannot go fur- ther north. In Inuvik the taxis are hired by tourists, who come to the North to fnd exotic locations: open spaces and a hardly any people. Te town itself is ugly and smells of oil, but from there you can fy to see “untouched” nature. Ecotourism is a growing business throughout the Arctic, but it is not what defnes the in- terest of the capital cities in the North. Teir interest stems from the fnancial possibilities, which also might be a political necessity soon. 7 PART I Arctic Visions 1998 Te planet’s forests are disappearing, clean water is running out and we constantly need more and more energy.