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Arctic Council Chairship to host International Maritime Safety Conference in the Faroe Islands

3 hours ago

2 min read

The Chairship of the Arctic Council will host an international conference on maritime safety in mid-October under the title Cold Seas, Critical Gaps.

The conference will take place at Hotel Føroyar in Tórshavn and will focus on preventing and preparing for maritime emergencies involving passenger vessels operating in Arctic and North Atlantic waters.

The Kingdom of Denmark, together with the Faroe Islands and Greenland, currently holds the Arctic Council Chairship for the 2025-2027 period. Through the conference, the chairship aims to highlight growing challenges linked to emergency preparedness and response in some of the world's most remote and demanding maritime regions.

Participants will include representatives from Arctic Council member states and Indigenous Peoples' organizations, as well as researchers, environmental and maritime authorities, emergency response agencies, and industry stakeholders.

The conference comes at a time of increasing maritime traffic in the Arctic and North Atlantic. Long distances, harsh weather conditions, and limited infrastructure continue to pose significant challenges for emergency response operations. Organizers warn that a major incident involving a large passenger vessel could rapidly place considerable strain on local communities, rescue services, healthcare systems, infrastructure, and the marine environment.

The issue is also highly relevant to the Faroe Islands and Greenland. More than 100 cruise ships visited the Faroe Islands and Faroese waters during 2025, while at certain times as many as 17,000 passengers were on cruise vessels around the islands simultaneously. In Greenland, approximately 94,000 cruise passengers arrived on 232 voyages last year.

"A serious passenger ship incident in the Arctic would not only be a maritime crisis. It could quickly become a broader societal challenge requiring coordinated action from rescue services, healthcare providers, municipalities, volunteers, environmental authorities, and local communities," said Jens Heine Grauen Larsen, lead coordinator of Cold Seas, Critical Gaps and head of the Kingdom of Denmark's delegation to the Arctic Council's Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response Working Group.

The programme includes keynote speeches, plenary sessions, and workshops.

Discussions will address emerging risks, tourism and shipping in the Arctic and North Atlantic, Indigenous and community perspectives, search and rescue operations, healthcare preparedness, commercial contingency planning, volunteer contributions, and protection of the marine environment.

Debates throughout the conference will be centred on three key questions:

What are the greatest challenges?
How can practical solutions be developed?
What should the next steps be?

The findings will be compiled into a report that will be presented to the Arctic Council and relevant stakeholders across the Arctic region and the international maritime sector.

The conference supports two of the main priorities of the Kingdom of Denmark's Arctic Council Chairship for 2025-2027: Indigenous Peoples and Communities of the Arctic and Oceans.

The event is open to the public and participation will be possible both in person and online. Attendance is free of charge, although registration is required for those wishing to participate on site.

(Mynd: Canva, AI generated)

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