Arctic Voices: Strategies for Community Engagement

This chapter focuses on how in future improved public participation can contribute to mitigating profound and undesired impacts of extractive projects on the living conditions of peoples across the region. Participation in decision-making processes is to a large extent expected to ensure that development takes place in a manner that is in line with local and indigenous people's wishes and aspirations for the future, while also supporting the possibility of realising these aspirations. Public participation should follow international standards applicable in Arctic states as well as the domestic legal requirements in all the Arctic countries. Citizens are primarily involved and participate in a particular period in the life cycle of an extractive project, namely in relation to impact assessment processes carried out by companies to prepare for an application for a production licence. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.