The Arctic Conversation Podcast

Harder ice crusts make it harder for reindeer to find food, the sea ice used for indigenous people to go hunting is not as thick as it used to be. The ongoing climate change is having a impact on indigenous ways of food production.

Photojournalist Pat Kane from Canada and Thomas Nielsen from Norway discuss how climate change is changing indigenous food production in Canada and the European part of the Arctic. What happens when massive wildfires block a big part of a land used by indigenous, or when reindeers are unable to graze?Listen and join our arctic conversation with #ArcticConversation!

Shipping, mineral resources and Arctic tourism is currently the focal point for Asian interest in the Arctic, especially in Russia, but it is also moving west towards Greenland. Chinese investments is in many places happily welcomed by municipalities, regions and countries, still there is hesitation among many regarding Chinas true motives. Canadian journalist Gloria Dickie who monitors the development of Asian interest in the Arctic discuss the motives, challenges and possibilities of Asian interest with Russian environmental journalist, Anna Kireeva.

Listen and join our arctic conversation with #ArcticConversation!

Katarina Hällgren, a Sami journalist working in Sweden and Mari Molkoselkä, fresh off journalism school in Finland discuss racism and discrimination experienced by indigenous people in the Arctic Region. During the past few years hatred and racist acts against the Sami population has received media attention in Sweden after the large scale case of Girjas, where a Sami village received the rights to control hunting in their region. After that a number of racist attacks on social media and towards reindeers were noted.

In this episode Gloria Dickie, Canada talks to Amy Martin about the Greenland Ice sheet that is slowly melting. The Greenland Ice sheet has had a big impact on Amy who have had the rare opportunity to visit the ice sheet some years ago, and the Greenland Ice sheet will have an even bigger impact to people around the world if it continues to melt. Listen and join our arctic conversation with #ArcticConversation!

Our journalists from across the Arctic regions reports about closed borders, restrictions on mass gatherings and how the health care system copes with the pandemic in their respective countries.

The second season of the Arctic Conversation will launch in June 2020, don't miss out! Subscribe now!

Season 2 of the Arctic Conversation Podcast will be available this spring, featuring more journalists, more topics and of course more Arctic Conversation!

In many ways the Arctic has been a region of international cooperation, especially in the sciences. Could the far north (or a portion of it) follow a path like Antarctica, and become a zone in which countries agree that scientific collaboration is the top priority? Or are we doomed to a future of territorial competition as the sea ice melts? This gets into the possibility of military conflict but doesn’t put it quite so much in the center of the conversation.

We also talk about development versus conservation: The Arctic is home to some amazing wildlife and as-yet undamaged ecosystems. But as people in Montana sometimes say, “you can’t eat the view.” Meaning, preservation of wildlife and wild places can in some cases make it hard for local people to earn a living. As industries move north the tension between economic development and conservation of land, water, air and creatures is increasing.

In this final episode for the first season we talk about future Arctic Dreams - and Nightmares.

For this episode, we’re going to focus on indigenous perspectives in the Arctic. Even though we often think of the Arctic as an inhospitable place, humans have actually lived in this region for a very long time. Recent archaeological findings show that human beings inhabited the Arctic as far back as 40,000 years ago, maybe longer. Today, there are dozens of indigenous groups in the circumpolar north -- the Inuit, the Sámi, the Nenets and many more -- and in the last several centuries, almost all of those indigenous groups have been impacted by colonization. As just one example of that: although the Arctic is currently divided into eight countries, there are different indigenous nations with long histories in all of these areas that pre-date our current national boundaries. In other words, if we drew the map of the Arctic from the perspectives of the various indigenous groups, our whole definition of what this region is would be very different.

The climate change is real, let’s all agree on that. In this episode we discuss what impact this has on the people living in the arctic. How does it affect the everyday life? What happens to the indigenous people and their traditions? Talking about the not so obvious things will give you a brand new perspective of the climate change. What differences do we see and hear through the arctic region?

What issues do we avoid to talk about? What do we need to do to make a change?

How does the next generation of Northerners feel about climate change? How does it feel to think about future winters with less or no snow?

The Polar Ice is melting, the permafrost of Siberia is thawing and every summer the Arctic is engulfed in large forest fires. The Arctic region is undergoing terrestrial changes. At the same time the Arctic region is dependent on heavy industries, such as oil, gas, iron ore, nickel and heavy plants. These sites often damage the local environment, in a region which already is heavily affected. A region that also attracts more and more tourist from all over the world that wants to explore the exotic arctic nature and lifestyle.

The paradox of having industries that destroy your neighbourhood is very interesting and in this episode this is our main focus.