Pyramiden, an former mining town on Svalbard, got evacuated in 1998 after the Russian government acknowledged that the coal extraction was no longer economically viable. On very small scale and after years without economic activities, today the settlement experiences first efforts for revitalization.

It was a great opportunity to attend the recent Arctic Innovation Camp held from 17th to 19th November at the University of Lapland. There were working groups to address challenges that are peculiar to Northern Sparsely Populated Areas (NSPA).

Founded in the 1950s, Mirny has become one of the world's most important origin for diamonds, making the Russian Federation one of the global leaders in diamond production. The blog post by Gerald Zojer describes some of the information he was able to gather during the UArctic PhD- and Masters course “Resource governance between global theories and local approaches”, which was held from 16th to 22nd of February 2016.

I was lucky enough to be in Biratori town during my recent visit to Hokkaido.

It takes an hour by flight from New York to Burlington, where the University of Vermont is located. Burlington is a relatively small city compared to other cities in the United States.

Participating the Calotte Academy brought me to several sites on the Kola peninsula. One of the most memorable views are the surroundings of the nickel smelter in the town Nikel, where the environmental degradation is very visible, as well as the war memorial in the area. A short story about these experiences.

HuSArctic kick-off meeting was followed next day by guest lectures on Human Security and Societal Sustainability. This time the seminar took place in the Thule meeting room in the upper floor of the Arctic Centre.