"Arctic Council"

A U.S. State Department official said planning is well under way for the big, biennial meeting of top diplomats from the eight Arctic Council member nations to be held this spring in Fairbanks.

Proposals drafted by last spring’s Model Arctic Council may be considered by the real Arctic Council when they meet in Alaska starting this week.

Youth Conservation Corps introduces high school students to a stretch of protected land they’ve grown up near, but may not even know exists — all in the hopes that someday these young Alaskans will become its next stewards.

“Good public policy, including good foreign policy, … must be based on facts on the ground, which is to say it must be based in reality,” said Julia Gourley, the United States’ senior Arctic official on the Arctic Council.

Surprisingly, more than half the council’s non-Arctic states submitted assessment reports of their own emissions of black carbon, the particulate waste from fossil fuel combustion.

The United States will take over Friday as chair of the Arctic Council, the international body of representatives from eight nations with territory in the region.

Some Arctic watchers wonder if the U.S. needs to add an item to its Arctic priority list: get tough with Russia.

With priorities ranging from international to extremely local, lawmakers, researchers, and coastal representatives still working out just what that arctic policy will be.

Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday named former Coast Guard commandant Robert J. Papp Jr. as special representative to the Arctic.