Date: 2016-12-05 08:00:00 AM - 2016-12-07 18:00:00 PM
Venue: Expoforum Convention and Exhibition Center, St. Petersburg
Event Website: http://www.forumarctic.com/eng/conf2016/
Nadia French, Associate at PRPI specialising in the Russian Arctic, attended the VI International Forum ‘Arctic: Today and the Future’ held in St Petersburg on 5-7 of December 2016.
This forum is an annual event where the Russians who represent the Arctic regions in policy-making, science and industry gather together under the auspice of the president of the Russian Association of Polar Explorers (ASPOL), the notorious Artur Chilingarov, discuss the current Russian Arctic issues as they see them and write up a resolution with all the conclusions, comments and remarks developed in the course of the plenary and panel sessions, which is later printed and handed over to the government. The event is attended by the Parliament members, regional leaders, government officials, etc.
Some of the issues raised during this year’s Forum included the demand for the Russian Federal Law on the Arctic, the creation of regional nodes of development in a harmonised manner in order to avoid competition between the regions for investment, the means and mechanisms of filling the gap between the baseline environmental safety legislation and the desired standard of ecological security in the Arctic, a lack of qualified workforce in the Arctic and means of tackling the problem of negative demographics.
For more information about the Forum, please click here.
Nadia French (left), Fellow at Polar Research and Policy Initiative, with Maria Lagutina (right), Associate Professor and Vice-Head of the Worlds Politics Department at Saint Petersburg State University.
Panel discussing environmental security standard.