Arctic youth voices front and center
Photo: AYD
As partners in the YT4AF project, the Saami Council is sharing what young leaders from our Arctic Youth Dialogue (AYD) youth wrote in response to the EU Arctic Strategy, ensuring young northerners and Indigenous youth help shape the European policies that impact their home.
Read their statement below!
The Arctic is a Homeland, Not a Strategic Frontier: A Response to Europe’s Northern Neighbourhood Strategy.
On October 20, the European Commission released its new Arctic strategy, Europe’s Northern Neighbourhood: A New Strategy for the Arctic. Through the Arctic Youth Dialogue (AYD), Arctic and European youth engaged EU institutions to make policy recommendations in 2024, 2025 and 2026. While we welcome the recognition of several youth priorities, we ask whether the strategy truly turns commitments into action.
We particularly welcome continued youth engagement through the AYD, a Youth Sounding Board in Nuuk and increased youth exchange opportunities (Erasmus+). We also see the recognition of climate change as a defining threat, the importance of climate adaptation, the focus on renewable energy, ocean protection and sustainable local entrepreneurship, and the need to uphold Indigenous Knowledge systems and Indigenous Peoples’ rights including Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
However, recognition alone is not implementation. The EU’s emphasis on critical minerals, infrastructure and strategic connectivity raises difficult questions of cumulative impacts on biodiversity, Sámi livelihoods and Indigenous Peoples’ rights. In particular, designating contested projects such as Nussir and Sakatti as strategic priorities deserves particular scrutiny. Climate change is reshaping Arctic coasts, permafrost, ecosystems and daily life for Indigenous communities. Food security, housing, health, education and cultural continuity are central to Arctic security - not secondary to external geopolitical interests and contestations. These challenges are all interconnected, yet the strategy does not adequately define how Arctic communities will shape priorities, funding, and implementation of EU responses. Climate resilience must be defined not only by environmental targets, but by communities’ abilities to sustain their livelihoods, cultures, and ways of knowing, living and being.
In response to the updated strategy, we urge the EU to:
Show how AYD recommendations between 2024-2026 inform decision-making with
transparent follow-up;
Ensure meaningful youth participation and Indigenous leadership from agenda-setting to
implementation, not consultation alone;
Apply rigorous environmental assessments, address cumulative impacts and respect
Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including FPIC;
Set measurable, time-bound commitments for climate adaptation, biodiversity protection,
and community well-being, with Indigenous and Arctic communities defining success;
Advance the 30x30 biodiversity target upholding Indigenous rights and subsistence
livelihoods;
Ensure that Indigenous, Arctic, and European youth have visible policy influence, with clear responsibilities and opportunities to evaluate progress.
The Arctic is not a strategic frontier for others to develop. It is a home to peoples and communities whose voices, rights, and futures must evidently shape every decision. This message is supported by the signatories below from AYD cohorts across 2024, 2025 and 2026, as well as Youth Board members of the Youth Together for Arctic Futures project,
which hosts AYD:
Lauren Clavelle
Maëlle Fauvet
Yuliia Fefelova
Ronja Gérard
Niels Grandia
Inès Hamila
Elna Kanerva
Emilia Luiro
Hans Ravna-Pieski
Rufus Rune
Sebastian Seebacher
Noah Selch Thuestad
Deniz Vural
Juhán Nikolaus Wuolab Wollberg