Abstract
The challenges faced by the peoples and governments in the Himalayas-Third Pole region resemble the ones in the Arctic. Both regions are seriously affected by external pressures such as climate change, and they share similar geopolitical circumstances. What differs between the two is that one has an effective regional governance structure to address these challenges while the other does not. The question therefore arises whether one could learn from the other. The simple answer to the question is yes. The experience from the bottom-up and science based evolution of the Arctic cooperation could serve as a model to build trust, bridge tension and foster intergovernmental cooperation that deals specifically with the Himalayan-Third Pole region. However, the politics of the region are complex and highly influenced by security tensions. It would appear that active leadership of the dominant powers, India and China, would be necessary. These two have the capacity and the resources, and as observer states to the Arctic Council, they have the first hand insight and experience of the Arctic governance structure.
Ambassador of Iceland to India. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views of the Government of Iceland.
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Notes
- 1.
A good example is the “SaGAA” conference series of the LIGHTS Research Foundation of 2011, 2012 and 2015 which has brought together leading Indian and international researchers and scientists in the area of Polar research. Many of the papers are available in this volume and in the previous publication edited by Ramesh et. al (2013). See also IDSA (2014) which contains papers presented at the conference “Geopolitics of the Arctic: Commerce, Governance and Policy” held at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi in September 2013.
- 2.
Dr. Sanjay Chaturvedi, Professor at the Department of Political Science at Panjab University drew the attention of the author to the book of Bal Gangadhar Tilak The Arctic Home in the Vedas in which Tilak establishes ancestral connection of India to the Arctic arguing that the Vedas were composed in the Arctic and that the Aryans had brought them south when they fled the last ice age. What is interesting is that this book was written in 1898 (first published in 1903) by an Indian nationalist whom the British colonial authorities are said to have called the “father of the Indian unrest” while his followers gave him the honorary title “Lokmanya”, or the one “accepted by the people (as their leader)”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arctic_Home_in_the_Vedas; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_Gangadhar_Tilak.
- 3.
These motives were recurrent themes in presentations of researchers from the five Asian states at the Annual Maritime Power Conference of the National Maritime Foundation devoted to the topic Asia and the Arctic: Opportunities and Challenges, held in New Delhi 19–20 February 2015. See also IDSA (2014) and Roundtable (2014).
- 4.
Dr. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, former President of Iceland and accomplished scholar of political science has devoted much attention to the Arctic and the Himalaya regions, not the least in the context of climate change. He is the founder of the Arctic Circle, an independent forum that brings together in an open dialogue decision-makers, business leaders, scientists and representatives of civil society. The Arctic Circle holds annual Assemblies in Reykjavík. It also organizes smaller forums on specific issues, such as the 2015 forums in Alaska and Singapore and the 2016 forums in Québec and Greenland. http://arcticcircle.org/about.
- 5.
The Arctic Council was founded by all the eight Arctic states, by this time the Russian Federation had replaced the USSR.
- 6.
The sixth working group, the Arctic Contaminants Action Program (ACAP) was added in 2006.http://www.arctic-council.org/index.php/en/about-us.
- 7.
Six organizations representing Arctic Indigenous peoples have status as Permanent Participants: the Aleut International Association, the Arctic Athabaskan Council, Gwich’in Council International, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North and the Saami Council. http://www.arctic-council.org/index.php/en/about-us/permanent-participants.
- 8.
- 9.
The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 and related agreements are collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System .
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- 13.
The Amu Darya, Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra (Yarlungtsanpo), Irrawaddy, Salween (Nu), Mekong (Lancang), Yangtse (Jinsha), Yellow River (Huanghe), and Tarim (Dayan).
- 14.
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- 19.
http://www.tibet328.cn/11/2014/07/9/201408/t20140808_439028.htm; http://www.tpe.ac.cn/node/220; http://www.gwp.org/en/gwp-south-asia/GWP-SAS-IN-ACTION/News-and-Activities/Third-Pole-Meeting-in-Thimpu-Bhutan; http://www.icimod.org/?q=17399; http://www.bbs.bt/news/?p=48382; http://www.icimod.org/?q=11645.
- 20.
Located at the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing, the Third Pole Environment (TPE) programme is the result of the efforts of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research to form an international research programme on environmental changes and adaptation in the Third Pole region. http://www.tpe.ac.cn.
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Ibsen, T. (2018). The Arctic Cooperation, a Model for the Himalayas—Third Pole?. In: Goel, P., Ravindra, R., Chattopadhyay, S. (eds) Science and Geopolitics of The White World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57765-4_1
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