Radioactivity - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 62

the ability of AMAP to keep its research and monitoring activities relevant to the needs of
developing and implementing Arctic circumpolar environmental policy. This model later
developed into the Arctic Contaminants Action Programme (ACAP), originally founded
as an Arctic Council plan to address the most significant Arctic pollution sources identi-
fied through AMAP. ACAP became the Arctic Council's sixth permanent working group in
2006.
At the end of 1995, the AMAP secretariat forwarded proposals from the two expert
groups to NEFCO. The following five issues were recommended for consideration by
NEFCO as being priorities for practical remediation projects (not in any order of priority):

· Handling and transport of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel

· Regional storage for radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel

· Development of alternative techniques for decommissioning nuclear submarines

· Nuclear safety at the Kola civilian nuclear power plant

· Risk and impact assessment associated with these proposed projects

An estimated budget was provided for each project. Other cooperative activities were and
have been involved in working with Russia to secure its environmental management of ra-
dioactive wastes in Arctic areas. However, I believe that the initiative shown by NEFCO
has been the most effective in catalyzing multi-stakeholder investment in addressing the
issues. NEFCO was very successful in obtaining the co-support or interest of other inter-
national funding mechanisms, including the Global Partnership Commitment arising from
the G8 meeting in Kananaskis (Canada) in 2002. As a result of these cooperative fund-
ing arrangements, 164 of the 198 Russian submarines taken out of service since 1994 had
been decommissioned by 2008. Of the remaining 34 submarines, 11 were being decom-
missioned, leaving only nine remaining in the north-west Russian Arctic. The remaining
submarines were located in far-eastern Russia. By the end of 2013, only one of the decom-
missioned submarines in the western Arctic remained.