30 September-4 October, Québec
The second international Sisimiut conference was held in Québec, from 30 September to 4 October as a follow-up to a NORA initiative that began in Sisimiut, Greenland, in 2023. The initial conference led to the establishment of a North Atlantic network of Unesco World Heritage Sites, biospheres, geoparks and national institutions that has since shown itself to be a solid platform for collaborating on topics related to sustainability, cultural heritage and tourism in the North Atlantic and Arctic.
Organised in collaboration with the Manicouagan-Uapishka Biosphere Reserve, Sisimiut II brought together 60 participants from a dozen countries, including cabinet members, policy makers and Unesco site managers. Among those attending was Québec’s minister of natural resources and Nordic cooperation, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, who echoed the sentiment of many of the participants in expressing a desire for closer cooperation among NORA and other stakeholders in the North Atlantic.
The formal part of the conference, held in Québec City, included plenary presentations, panel debates and workshops. The thematic workshops allowed participants to work intensively on individual topics. One of them, a joint roadmap for cooperation up to 2030, laid the foundation for several projects, including an artist-residency programme, a network for citizen-science research initiatives and a Unesco-supported “voluntourism” programme. Local initiatives, sustainable tourism, indigenous perspectives and partnerships with authorities emerged as recurring themes in the discussions.
The second part took place in the town of Baie-Comeau and featured workshops and field visits to the Uapishka Research Station and in the wider Uapishka region that gave participants insights into local sustainability initiatives and cultural heritage in practice. Participants also met with people living near the reserve. The conference confirmed the strength of the Sisimiut network and sought to enhance its relevance by drawing up plans for its strategic development and a revised structure ahead of a Sisimiut III.
With the Sisimiut initiative and this second conference, NORA has made a significant contribution to promoting cooperation, knowledge-sharing and development among Unesco stakeholders in the North Atlantic. The network has become a driving force for concrete sustainability initiatives and partnerships, and it will continue - now independent of NORA’s direction - to build on the foundation laid in Sisimiut and Québec.
