July/August 2009 - Issue 424

Who owns the Arctic? A few years ago most people, if they thought about this question at all, would probably have answered ‘no-one’, or possibly ‘Santa Claus’, and been content to leave it at that. But the question of who has the power to make decisions about what happens in the Arctic, and who has the right to its land, seas and resources, is increasingly starting to burn - within the Arctic nations, and beyond. Thanks to climate change, the rest of the world has never been so aware of what’s going on in the snowy north. Suddenly, we all have a stake in it. But who gets to determine its destiny?

The *NI* takes a look beyond the images of melting ice-caps and stressed-out polar bears that are sadly becoming commonplace, and focuses on the human consequences of the slow earthquake rocking the top of the world, and the struggles over its future that are currently being played out.