In this time, the United States became the chairman, and it was the fourth meeting. Since the chairman changes every two years, this time was the last board meeting under the United States chairmanship. The meeting took place at the Alaska Native Heritage Center; it took about 20 minutes by bus from downtown Anchorage, Alaska.
There was a museum exhibiting indigenous culture, lifestyle and so on. There are some traditional houses outside of the center and can see inside as well as inside. Also, it seems that a nursery school located near the center and on the first day of the meeting, a famous masher with dogs came to the school. Children of the school got on a dog sled and fun in front of the center during the morning session of the meeting. Since participants in the meeting like animals, they could not concentrate on the meeting. Many participants went to see the dog sled as soon as the break time came.
At this meeting, we summarized the results of the biodiversity monitoring program in the ocean, land, coastal and freshwater for two years; the United States acted as the chairmanship. The Arctic Biodiversity Congress 2018 was held last fall in Finland and had great success. Then, board member recommended that it will be held next conference in 2022. The board members approved the new five projects. Some of these relate to AMAP (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme) and PAME (The Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment).
The board members and PPs will prepare progress reports of CAFF projects to report the SAO meeting and Arctic Science Ministerial.
The next meeting will be held under the chairman of Sweden in September.
Masaki Uchida (NIPR, A member of Theme 6)
The meeting place “The Alaska Native Heritage Center”.
Children are enjoying by dog sledding.
The board meeting.
A tour of indigenous traditional houses.
The inside of the room. Snow goggles on the front and floats made with seals are placed on the back.
