When the Arctic Council Chairmanship passed from the United States to Finland in May of 2017, the Arctic Council also welcomed new Chairs for several of the six Working Groups. In the interview below, get to know Jens Peter Holst-Andersen of the Kingdom of Denmark, the new Chair of Working Group EPPR (Emergency Prevention, Preparedness, and Response).

“We covered so much ground here, and it was great to sense so much progress being made in these important areas." - EPPR Chair Amy Merten

At a meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska, March 15-17, the Arctic Council gathered Senior Arctic Officials (SAOs) from the eight Arctic States, and the six Permanent Participant organizations representing indigenous peoples of the Arctic, to address ongoing efforts on a range of topics of high importance for the Arctic.

The Arctic Council’s Working Group on Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response (EPPR) met on 1-3 December 2015 in Reykjavik, Iceland. Following their last meeting in Svalbard, EPPR met to discuss the group’s work on issues critical in the Arctic such as search-and-rescue (SAR) and preparedness and response to marine oil spills. EPPR is the Arctic Council’s point-of-contact for implementation of the 2013 Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic (MOSPA).

Representatives from the eight Arctic States and the Permanent Participants (six organizations representing Arctic Indigenous peoples) met in Anchorage, Alaska on October 20-22, 2015 to advance the work of the Arctic Council.

Read an interview with Amy Merten, Ph.D., the new chair of EPPR, the Arctic Council's working group on emergency prevention, preparedness and response…

The first live search and rescue exercise among the 8 Arctic states, “SAREX 2012”, took place 10-14 September in stormy weather and high seas in a remote area along Greenland’s east coast. The exercise involved personnel, authorities, airplanes, helicopters and ships from Canada, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and the United States. It is notable that all the ships, airplanes etc. were regional units normally operating in the High North nationally and in that context the exercise was conducted in a very realistic environment.

The first Arctic Council Search and Rescue exercise took place October 4-6, 2011 in Whitehorse, Yukon. 80 delegates and observers from the eight Arctic Council member states were welcomed by Lieutenant General Walter Semianiw, Commander Canada Command and host of the international exercise.

At the 2009 Ministerial Meeting in Tromsø, the Arctic Council decided to establish a Task Force with a mandate to develop an international instrument on cooperation on Search and Rescue operations in the Arctic. The Task Force, co-chaired by Ambassador Anton Vasiliev of the Russian Federation and Ambassador David Balton of the United States, met five times: in Washington (December 2009), in Moscow (February 2010), in Oslo (June 2010), in Helsinki (October 2010), and in Reykjavik (December 2010).