ARCTIC The U.S.-Canada Arctic Policy Forum: Impressions from the American Co-Chair

U.S.-Canadian cooperation in the Arctic and some of the barriers thereto. The U.S. co-chair assessed the causes of conflict between the two countries, the need for cooperation and some of the sources of each side’s conduct and indicated how the delegates- speaking in their capacities as private citizens- worked their way through the issues to the forum’s conclusion. Sovereignty questions dominated the conflict issues. But each side had four types of similar internal problems in making arctic policy: 1) native vs. nonnative interests; 2) regional vs. central interests; 3) public vs. private interests; and 4) oil development vs. subsistence and commercial fishing and hunting interests. The forum concluded with suggestions that future meetings use the Canadian Federal Assessment Panel’s (or Tener) report as a source of examining possible U.S.-Canadian cooperative measures in the Beaufort Sea region and the Canada-Denmark Agreement as a possible “model ” for U.S.-Canadian environmental cooperation in the Arctic