Big potential: Researchers contribute to Nordic project on Arctic resource extraction – MUN

Nordic countries are looking west and to the research expertise of Memorial University as they look tap into the lucrative resources of the Arctic, widely considered the new frontier of extractive development.

Dr. Arn Keeling, associate professor and graduate officer in the Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts, is the team lead for a contingent of Memorial researchers who are working one of four new Centres of Excellence recently established by the Nordic countries—Denmark, Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden—as well as a group called NordForsk, an organization aimed at strengthening Nordic research. One of the new centres is focusing its research on resource extractive industries—such as mining and hydrocarbons—and sustainable Arctic communities.

“Nordic researchers are tremendously interested in how Canadian governments and companies have promoted extractive development in the North and how northern and Indigenous communities have struggled to gain benefits from such developments while minimizing negative impacts,” explained Dr. Keeling.

Read More: http://www.mun.ca/research/news.php?id=6749