Greenpeace’s Team Aurora is currently on its way to the North Pole, where they will plant a ‘flag for the future’ on the Arctic seabed alongside almost three million signatures from people demanding that the Arctic is protected from oil drilling and industrial fishing. The team has faced great obstacles like open streams of meltwater, large ice pressure ridges and a southerly drift, causing the actual distance covered to be longer than anticipated.
Last week, news came to us that representatives from the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental political forum overseeing Arctic affairs, would be coming to the North Pole. Josefina Skerk, of the Sami community in northern Sweden and a Team Aurora member, contacted the Arctic Council asking whether they were prepared to meet her and the team at the North Pole for a talk about the future of the Arctic. Josefina was coordinating with Gustaf Lind to meet at the very place we’re trying to protect — it all felt so auspicious! But Wednesday night, while the team was sleeping in their cold tents, the Arctic Council flew in and left again without a word.
Not a movement to be ignored, we’ve already planned a large mobilisation to secure the attention of Arctic Council and world leaders: in just over a week, thousands of people will be gearing up around the world for a global day of Arctic action on April 20.
From Buenos Aires in the West to Bangkok in the East, from Yellowknife in the North to Johannesburg in the South, people will come together in hundreds of cities to form human banners spelling out I ♥ Arctic. Photographs of this poignant and powerful call for political leaders to protect the Arctic environment from the threats it’s facing, will be consolidated into a book and hand-delivered to ministers and representatives at the Arctic Council Foreign Ministers meeting taking place in Kiruna, Sweden, in May.
What happens in the Arctic affects us all - that's why we are coming together on April 20 to take joint action across the globe! You can read more and become a part of the global Save The Arctic movement here.