MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Arctic Council reach first binding agreement for search and rescue responsibilities

The eight nation Arctic Council agreed steps on Thursday to make the region safer and promised to study ways to prevent oil spills as fast-melting ice and snow open access to rich mineral and petroleum resources.

The Arctic Council, --founded in 1996--, made up of eight countries that surround the north ice cap, (Canada, Denmark, US, Russia, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) and representatives of indigenous Arctic peoples, signed a deal to split up search-and-rescue responsibilities in case of shipping or plane accidents.

The deal signed in Nuuk, capital of Denmark’s autonomous region of Greenland was the council's first binding agreement and officials say it could be a model for future pacts on more contentious issues, including energy exploration and development in a region estimated to hold as much as 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

The ministers also pledged to study new ways to both prevent and handle future oil spills. Environmental groups say time is running short to establish vital safeguards.

The search agreement also gave the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway responsibilities for areas right up to the North Pole -- avoiding the vexed question of which country's territory that might be.

“The Arctic Council is showing for the first time that it can agree a binding deal,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told NRK public television. “This is very positive”. The council has often been criticised as toothless.

The council also called for work to begin on an international deal to strengthen offshore oil spill prevention and response and urged new steps to control short-lived pollutants such as soot and methane, which have a particularly strong impact on the Arctic.

Last week, an international study projected world sea levels would rise by between 0.9 and 1.6 metres by 2100 -- more than previously thought -- partly because of accelerating melt of Greenland and other Arctic ice.

The changes are being felt most sharply in Arctic regions, where retreating ice opens up new sea routes and rising temperatures threaten polar bears and other native species as well as traditional livelihoods based on hunting.

Tensions in the Arctic have escalated in recent years because of the territorial aspirations of some of its members such is the case of Russia which is creating a motorized infantry brigade specifically for the Arctic.

Canada has warned about the risks of militarization before sovereignty and access to energy resources and fisheries disputes are overcome.

Russia has plans to present before the UN in 2013 a territorial claim over the Arctic sea bed sovereignty which could enable Moscow to control the whole region.