Canada uses military might in Arctic scramble

· Building programme is response to Russian move
· UN to decide on seabed claims to huge oil deposits

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Saturday August 11, 2007
The Guardian

Lancaster Sound, Nunavut, Canada
Lancaster Sound, Nunavut, Canada. Global warming has made the Arctic's oil and gas reserves more accessible Photograph: Louise Murray/Science Photo Library


An international scramble for the Arctic's oil and gas resources accelerated yesterday when Canada responded to Russia's recent sovereignty claims with a plan to build two military bases in the region.

On a trip to the far north, the prime minister, Stephen Harper, said: "Canada's new government understands that the first principle of Arctic sovereignty is: use it or lose it. Today's announcements tell the world that Canada has a real, growing, long-term presence in the Arctic."

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An army training centre for 100 troops is to be built in Resolute Bay, and a deep-water port will be built on Baffin Island, to bolster Canada's claim to ownership.

The move comes a week after a Russian sub planted a flag on the Arctic seabed. Moscow claims rights to half the Arctic. The US, Norway and Denmark also have claims.

A US state department official, speaking last week, signalled that Washington will not stand by in the face of what it sees as a Russian land-grab, though America's position is complicated by its failure so far to sign the treaty of the seas.

As Canada was making its move, Danish scientists were preparing to head for the Arctic tomorrow as part of their bid for a share of the region's wealth. A US coast guard icebreaker was heading to the Arctic to map the seafloor north of Alaska.

Although the US and Canada enjoy good relations, the American ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins, has expressed annoyance with the prime minister's claims in the past.

No country owns the Arctic Ocean and north pole, but there are international laws governing its use. Under one UN convention, each country with a coast has sole exploitation rights in a limited "exclusive economic zone", beyond which mineral resources are controlled by the International Seabed Authority. However, upon ratification of the UN convention, each country was given a 10-year period within which to make claims to extend its zone. Norway (ratified in 1996), Russia (1997), Canada (2003), and Denmark (2004) have all launched claims that certain Arctic sectors should belong to their territories.

The UN's ruling on these submissions will determine who gets the right to extract the Arctic's huge reserves of oil and gas, estimated at 10bn tonnes.

Arguments over the Arctic were until recently academic because of the depth of the ice, but global warming has seen some of it melt, making drilling feasible. The US geological survey estimates that 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be located under the polar cap.

Speaking in the shelter of a hut in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, Mr Harper said: "Protecting national sovereignty, the integrity of our borders, is the first and foremost responsibility of a national government, a responsibility which has too often been neglected."

Last month, he announced that six to eight navy patrol ships will be built to guard the Northwest Passage sea route in the Arctic, which the US insists does not belong to Canada.

Russian researchers claim the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range. Denmark, which owns Greenland, is claiming the same landmass, saying the Lomonosov ridge is an extension of its territory.

"The preliminary investigations done so far are very promising," Helge Sander, Denmark's minister of science, technology and innovation, told Denmark's TV2 on Thursday. "There are things suggesting that Denmark could be given the north pole."

Christian Marcussen, of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, said: "We will be collecting data for a possible demand."

The US's position is complicated because the Senate has refused since the 1990s to ratify the 1982 UN convention on the law of the sea, mainly because Republican senators refused to recognise the right of the United Nations to broker it.

Under the convention, countries are entitled to control any waters above landmasses which extend from their continental shelf, the basis of the Russian and Danish claims to the Lomonosov ridge. If the US operated on the same principle, it would be able to claim half of the Arctic.

There is a sense of alarm in the US administration at the possibility of a missed opportunity, and President George Bush in May broke ranks with Republican senators in support of ratification. New hearings in the Senate foreign relations committee will be held in the autumn.