Diana Wallis Attends Arctic Council

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 26th Apr 2001

Lib Dem Euro-MP for Yorkshire and the Humber, Diana Wallis, represented the European Parliament at the Arctic Council recently. Here she writes about the experience...

"Last week I found myself 79 degrees north, in glacial temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius, on the Arctic island of Spitzbergen, part of the Svalbard archipelago; not somewhere I would necessarily have expected to end up as a Member of the European Parliament. The main settlement on the island is the Norwegian mining town of Longyearbyen - the world's most northerly community with some 1,400 inhabitants.

I was there as Vice-Chair of the European Parliament's delegation to Norway. The inter-parliamentary delegations maintain relations with their counterparts in non-EU countries - an important function in understanding how other parliaments work and towards increasing cooperation. My particular delegation has responsibility for Arctic matters - so I was attending a meeting of Arctic Council parliamentarians.

The Council uniquely brings together parliamentarians, elected representatives, from Europe, Russia, the USA and Canada to deal with joint concerns in the Arctic region; issues such as Arctic pollution, which has implications for all of us in relation to global warming. It is important therefore to have organisations like the Arctic Council that can transcend purely national interests.

The Svalbard area is under Norwegian sovereignty by virtue of a First World War Treaty - but all

signatories to the Treaty -including the UK - have equal access to the islands' resources.

Sadly the British companies left long ago, although the small university of just 200 students is always seeking fresh intake (Interestingly induction week for the students includes a lesson on shooting polar bears - for self defence only!).

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing was to discover a Hull link to this isolated wilderness. The first visitors and exploiters of the islands' resources in the 16th century were whalers from Holland and Britain. Many of these whalers came from Hull, including some of the first to spend a winter on the island. These were true pioneers, so typical of the Hull spirit.

I found the situation and surroundings, with the perpetual daylight of the midnight sun, absolutely awe-inspiring but it must have been even more so for the original visitors from Hull, who did not have the daily flights from the mainland carrying life's essentials for a comfortable lifestyle."