Officials from the five Arctic nations (Canada, US, Russia, Denmark and Norway) who have the ability to lay claim to portions of the Arctic Ocean seabed by way of continental shelf rights (through the UN Law of the Sea treaty) will begin meetings today in Greenland to discuss this ongoing process.  Controversy has already emerged prior to the meetings taking place due in part to the notion that Canada’s envoy will not be represented by a senior Foreign Affairs bureaucrat, instead Natural Resource minister Gary Lunn will be in attendance.

Canada is currently completing a sizable seabed mapping project of various portions of the Arctic (stretching from the Beaufort Sea to the northern coastline of Ellesmere Island) that culminate in a possible claim comparable to that of all three prairie provinces to the UN Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf.

For further information on the Arctic Ocean seabed claims, please visit the following link:

http://www.polarwarming.ca/arctic_ocean.html 

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Denmark could put Canada’s Arctic ambitions on ice, expert warns– Canwest News Service