PAME Work Plan

PAME is co-organizing a conference on Arctic shipping with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the World Maritime University (WMU). ShipArc will be held in Malmö, Sweden from the 25^th to the 27^th of August 2015.

“The conference will be a major event for PAME and the Arctic Council this year. Preparations begun last year and the schedule is very exciting,” Soffía Guðmundsdóttir, the executive secretary of PAME said.

Amongst key speakers are leading scholars who have participated in PAME’s work. One of them is Dr. Lawson Brigham who was the co-editor of of the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA) and served as a vice chair of PAME from 2005-2009.

Another is David VanderZwaag, who co-leading the writing of the Governance of the Arctic Shipping chapter of the AMSA report. “We are thrilled to have such high-level participation from PAME and numerous of our experts will be attending as well. There should be dialogue among our leading people in Malmö,” Soffía said.

There are six themes to the conference. The Polar Code: Implementation & Compliance Assurance; Beyond the Polar Code; Arctic Governance; Sustainable Arctic Business Development; Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment; Training, Capacity-Building, Science & Research.

“In our preparations we decided to focus on six themes for this conference. We could have chosen many others as the topic is broad, but we felt that these six themes are current and appropriate. The conference is title Safe and Sustainable shipping in a changing Arctic Environment and the scene is certainly under constant evolvement.”

“We have two themes that discuss the Polar Code which was recently adopted by the IMO. The Polar Code has been anticipated for some time and this will be the prefect venue to introduce it and discuss its role in Arctic shipping. IMO’s experts and others will present it and discussions on what happens next will take place.”

See the conference website for more information. Registration is ongoing and Malmö is only a 20-minute train ride from Copenhagen.

www.pame.is