Involvement of local and indigenous people in defense and emergency response tasks in the Arctic

Based on an upcoming report by Jeppe Strandsbjerg and Signe W. Lindbjerg, this seminar will focus on local involvement in defense and emergency response tasks.

Based on case studies from Canada and Iceland, we will discuss how these experiences can be incorporated into a Greenlandic discussion, where there is a strong focus on Arctic Basic Training and the possibility of introducing Greenlandic rangers based on the Canadian model.

Experiences with the involvement of local and indigenous people in the Arctic may become an important theme for the development of defense and security policy in Greenland. Across the Arctic, there is a focus on involving local people to strengthen preparedness and defense capabilities. A common denominator for large parts of the Arctic is that they share an inhospitable geography with a low population density. For many years, Canada and Iceland have had success with local involvement in defense and security tasks through two relatively different models that share a common basic idea: that for a wide range of security tasks, one can draw on locals' knowledge of their communities, terrain, and climate, and in the event of accidents, have a faster response time by having trained personnel spread throughout the country.