1) A new book, Benefit Sharing in the Arctic: Extractive Industries and Arctic People, was published this month. This open-access work seeks to examine the relationship between regional natural resource exploration and exploitation activities, and Indigenous peoples in the Arctic, including case studies focusing on Russia’s northern areas.
2) As Eye on the Arctic reported, Jonas Böhlmark, a twenty-nine year old Swedish cross-country skier, completed a Baltic Sea crossing on a paddle board in forty-three hours. This (sleepless) voyage was to allow the athlete to engage in some off-season training.
3) The current Icelandic government, elected in 2017, has been in office for 1000 days as of 25 August, as RÚV reported. Some have argued that the public desire for more political stability has contributed to ability of the current coalition, composed the Left-Green, Independence and Progressive Parties to stay in office. The two previous governments between 2013 and 2017 were much more short-lived. The next parliamentary election may take place in September 2021, as Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir has suggested.
4) The Barents Observer reported that Murmansk, the most densely inhabited Arctic area in Russia, has continues to experience out-migration, with the latest figures suggesting a population of 738,900, down by 2500 people since the year began. The government of President Vladimir Putin has been trying to encourage Russians to relocate to the country’s Arctic lands as part of his policies to better develop these regions.
5) A new article, ‘The ABCs of Greenland‘, written by Mingming Shi, was published in Over the Circle, providing a comprehensive overview of Greenland, including politics, history, the economy and other aspects of life in the Arctic nation.
Over the Circle 