Arctic Congress 2026: The Arctic Dilemma

As part of the thematic plenary session “Resilience and Adaptation in Northern Communities” at UArctic Congress 2026, leading researchers, educators, and Indigenous representatives gathered to discuss how Northern and Arctic communities can strengthen health, identity, and social resilience in times of rapid change.

The session focused on the participation and empowerment of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, addressing topics such as public health, Indigenous self-determination, mental and social well-being, youth engagement, sustainable community development, and the role of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage in shaping resilient societies.

The session was chaired by Bergur Djurhuus Hansen, Associate Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Faroese Language and Literature at the University of the Faroe Islands, as well as lead of the UArctic Thematic Network Arctic Cultures and History (ARCH).

Among the keynote speakers was Professor of Public Health Pál Weihe, whose full keynote speech can be read below.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Arctic is often imagined as one of the last pristine regions of the world: remote seas, vast ice landscapes, and societies living close to nature through hunting and fishing traditions that stretch back hundreds of years.

Yet paradoxically, some of the highest concentrations of environmental contaminants measured in humans are found precisely among populations living in these seemingly untouched regions.

This contradiction lies at the heart of what has become known as the Arctic dilemma.

The dilemma concerns the collision between two forms of risk. On one side are toxic contaminants that accumulate in Arctic food chains and ultimately enter the bodies of people consuming traditional marine foods such as whales, seals, seabirds, and polar bears.

On the other side are the social, cultural, nutritional, and psychological consequences that may follow if these traditional food systems are abandoned.

The central question therefore becomes deeply uncomfortable for researchers, clinicians, and public authorities alike:

Should Arctic populations be advised to reduce consumption of their traditional foods because of contamination, even if such advice may undermine nutrition, identity, social cohesion, and cultural continuity?

This is not simply a toxicological problem.

It is simultaneously a question of ecology, anthropology, epidemiology, ethics, politics, and human rights.

My own background for speaking on this issue is that for more than forty years I have worked with marine contaminants and their effects on children’s health, particularly on the developing brain and immune system.

Much of this work has been conducted in the Faroe Islands.

One important component of Faroese traditional diet has historically been the pilot whale — a non-endangered toothed whale, or more precisely a dolphin species, occupying a high trophic level in the marine food chain.

Pilot whales arrive unpredictably along our coasts and have for centuries been hunted and distributed throughout Faroese society according to carefully regulated communal traditions.
Historically, the arrival of pilot whales could mean survival during periods of food scarcity. Over generations, this created deep emotional and cultural bonds between Faroese society and the whale hunt.

These bonds have, if anything, become even stronger in recent decades, partly because international anti-whaling campaigns have increasingly targeted Faroese whaling traditions.

The objections from such groups are often not primarily based on conservation biology, since the pilot whale is not endangered, nor necessarily on animal welfare concerns alone. Rather, whales appear to occupy a particular symbolic and moral position in modern global culture.

I say this after many years of discussions with anti-whaling activists from abroad.

More than forty years ago, my colleagues and I began prospective cohort studies investigating whether consumption of pilot whale meat and blubber had beneficial or harmful effects on children’s health and development.

As the evidence accumulated, our research group together with Faroese health authorities gradually issued dietary advisories, particularly aimed at women of childbearing age.

But by 2008, the evidence had become sufficiently strong that the Faroese Chief Medical Officer and I — supported by the Danish National Board of Health — concluded that pilot whale meat and blubber could no longer be regarded as safe for human consumption because of their contaminant content.

The levels of contaminants would in fact have rendered these products illegal for sale in many other parts of Europe.

At this point, one begins to see the true contours of the Arctic dilemma.

On one side stands a deeply rooted cultural tradition and an important marker of collective identity.

On the other side stands scientific evidence demonstrating risks to fetal development, neurodevelopment, and immune function.

To understand this dilemma, one must first understand that most contaminants found in Arctic populations do not originate in the Arctic itself.

Industrial chemicals and heavy metals released in Europe, Asia, and North America are transported northward through atmospheric and oceanic circulation — what is sometimes called the “global distillation effect.”

Persistent organic pollutants, or POPs, resist degradation and accumulate in Arctic ecosystems over decades.

Among the most important contaminants are:

•    methylmercury,
•    PCBs,
•    DDE,
•    PFAS compounds

These compounds bioaccumulate through marine food chains.

Small organisms are eaten by fish; fish are eaten by seals and by whales and seals eaten by polar bears.

With each trophic level, contaminant concentrations increase.

Humans at the top of this chain therefore receive one of the highest exposures. Ironically, the populations most affected are often those who contributed least to global pollution.

The health effects are measurable and biologically significant.

Methylmercury is a potent neurotoxin, particularly harmful to the developing fetal brain.

Our studies and others have demonstrated associations between prenatal exposure and deficits in attention, memory, language, motor function, and cognitive processing.

Importantly, these effects may occur without obvious poisoning.

A child may appear healthy while nevertheless losing part of their neurological potential.

Persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs and PFAS have also increasingly been linked to immunotoxicity.

One particularly concerning finding from Arctic cohort studies has been reduced antibody responses following childhood vaccinations among highly exposed children.

In other words, environmental pollution may silently weaken one of the body’s most fundamental defense systems.

And yet, the dilemma cannot be solved simply by saying: “Then stop eating traditional foods.”

Traditional Arctic diets are not merely nutritional systems.

They are cultural systems, social systems, and survival systems.

Marine foods provide high-quality protein, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, selenium, iron, and stable food security in environments where agriculture is often impossible.

Hunting itself transmits knowledge, social roles, language, environmental understanding, and intergenerational continuity.

Thus, advising against traditional foods may affect far more than contaminant exposure.

In the Faroe Islands, discontinuing pilot whale consumption would probably not threaten societal survival.

We are fortunate to have access to abundant fish resources and high-quality imported foods.
But in parts of northern Greenland and Candada and other Arctic regions, the situation is very different.

There, communities remain heavily dependent on traditional hunting and fishing.

If traditional food systems collapse, replacement diets often consist not of healthy nutritional alternatives, but of expensive imported processed foods: frozen pizzas, sugary beverages, industrialized carbohydrates, and other nutritionally inferior products.

As traditional diets decline, many Arctic populations have experienced rapid increases in obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorders.

Thus, a narrow toxicological success may paradoxically produce a broader public health failure.

But the consequences extend beyond biology.

Rapid cultural disruption may contribute to loss of identity, weakening of social cohesion, substance abuse, depression, and migration away from small Arctic communities.

Public health recommendations are therefore never culturally neutral.

For some Arctic populations, dietary advice from southern institutions may be perceived not merely as health guidance, but as another stage in a long history of external intervention and cultural marginalization.

This perception cannot simply be dismissed.

This brings us to the central ethical question.

Should we withhold information about contamination in order to preserve culture and social stability?

Or do Arctic populations possess the same right as populations in Europe or North America to detailed knowledge about contaminants in their food?

If elevated contaminant levels were discovered in a commonly consumed food in Paris, Copenhagen, or New York, authorities would immediately regulate, warn, and intervene.

Can we ethically justify acting differently in the Arctic for the sake of cultural preservation?

I have struggled with this question for many years, and I do not believe there are simple answers.
Personally, I am reluctant to adopt the intellectually convenient argument that beneficial nutrients in contaminated traditional foods somehow fully compensate for contaminant toxicity.
I have not seen convincing scientific evidence for such compensation.

My conclusion therefore remains the following:

Circumpolar populations exposed to environmental contaminants have the same right to detailed and transparent information about contaminant levels in their food as populations elsewhere.

At the same time, these communities themselves must ultimately decide what degree of health risk they are willing to accept in order to preserve their societies, traditions, and cultural identity.

But such decisions must be informed decisions.

The role of researchers is therefore not only to generate scientific data, but also to ensure that knowledge is communicated honestly, respectfully, and in culturally meaningful ways.

Advice regarding traditional diets should ideally come from well-informed local or regional health authorities working close with the communities themselves.

And finally, we must remember something essential:

The Arctic dilemma is not fundamentally created by Arctic peoples.

It is created by industrial pollution originating elsewhere.

In that sense, the Arctic dilemma is not only an Arctic problem.

It is a warning about the global consequences of industrial civilization — and about the complexity of defining what it truly means for a population to live well.

Thank you.

Sylvia Moore, Dean & Associate Professor, UArctic Chair in Indigenous and Northern Education and Vice Chair Verdde Indigenous Education Thematic Network

Panel: Pál Weihe, Professor of Public Health, Sylvia Moore, Dean & Associate Professor, School of Arctic and Subarctic Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Gunn-Britt Retter, Head of Delegation to Arctic Council, Saami Council, Heather Angnatok, UArctic Fellow and an Inuk educator, advisor to Verdde Indigenous Education Thematic Network, and Malou Platou Johansen, Lecturer, Institute of Health & Nature, Univeristy of Greenland. Chair: Bergur Djurhuus Hansen, PhD, Associate Professor, Dean of Faculty of Faroese Language and Literature, Lead of the UArctic Thematic Network Arctic Cultures and History (ARCH).