The eight arctic countries have been working together to evaluate the source and impacts on humans and the environment of contaminants (eg. PCBs, DDT, mercury etc.) since the early 1990s. Several reports released by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) have documented the distant sources of these contaminants and outlined the human and evironmental concerns. This meeting in Arctic Canada during the fall of 2008 will outline the state of knowldege on the human health concerns related to these enviromental contaminants.

The Kinnvika project will re-open an old research station from the previous polar year to study Arctic Warming and Impact Research. The spectrum of projects from geosciences to the humanities, investigates how the environmental and anthropogenic dynamics have changed recently in comparison with past records of change from existing expedition logs and photographs, proxy climate data from ice-, lake- and sea-sediment cores, and dynamic studies both on terrestrial as marine ice. This is a major multi-national multi-disciplined project involving 26 working groups and more than 80 Principal Investigators.

The ACE programme aims to facilitate research in the broad area of Antarctic climate evolution. The programme will link geophysical surveys and geological studies on and around the Antarctic continent with ice-sheet and climate modelling studies. These studies are designed to investigate climate and ice sheet behaviour in both the recent and distant geologic past, including times when global temperature was several degrees warmer than today.

The voyages of discovery in the second half of the 16th century and later, during the so called Heroic Century of Polar Exploration (1870-1920), including the first International Polar Year (1882-1883), made it possible for the western colonial powers to penetrate into the polar areas. The voyages of discovery not only led to scientific research but also the exploitation of natural resources. Until now, the history of polar science and exploitation of polar areas were almost exclusively studied from a regional and national approach based on written sources from the archives in the countries in the core region. The aim of this project is to study the various (hunting, whaling, mining and research) settlements/stations in their natural settings from a bipolar, international and comparative perspective. The project will give an overview of the development of science and natural resource exploitation and its impact on the natural environment and the indigenous peoples.

The European Polar Board and Swedish Research Council recently week hosted a workshop in Tarfala, northern Sweden, focussed on developing outreach and communication efforts in Europe. It was an amazing venue, set at a research station surrounded by glaciers. The group consisted of artists, writers, press and media, photographers, publicity professionals, museum curators, scientists and IPY national representatives. On a hike up to a glacier, I asked one new colleague, Luigi Folco from the Museo Nazionale...