A regular meeting of Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG), which is one of six working groups of the Arctic Council, was held at Inari in Finland from 21st-22nd September 2017.
Inari is known as a traditional capital of Sami people in Finland. The venue was the plenary at the Sami Parliament. Participants are the eight Arctic Nations, six Permanent Participants, seven observer states and ten observer entities. The author attended the meeting on behalf of Japanese government, which is an observer state.
The Sami Pariament
SDWG regular meeting
The agenda was reports from recent activities of various projects under the SDWG. The outreach of these activities was also discussed. There was a side event for participants visiting the Sami Education Center. It was interesting to hear an attempt revitalizing the Sami languages (Inari Sami, North Sami and Skolt Sami) at day care facilities .
Although it is not rare nowadays, what was remaining in my mind was an environmental approach in organizing this meeting (paperless and not using buses for commuting during the meeting). Thanks to this approach, I enjoyed the Scandinavian Autumn leaves on the ways commuting to the venue.
Fujio Ohnishi (Hokkaido University, a member of theme 7)
