IPY 2012

I took this photo at the close of the IPY 2010 Oslo Science Conference, Dr. Olav Orheim, the Norwegian IPY Secreteriate/Research Council of Norway (chair) gives a Viking budstikke (message stick) to Dr. Peter Harrison, Chair of the next and final IPY event, the “From Knowledge to Action” Conference, to be held in Montreal in April 2012. (http://www.ipy2012montreal.ca) The man pointing to the buddstikke is Eloy Feria a Venezuelan artist living in Paris He was at the Oslo Conference presenting with his partner Francoise the Manifest of the Wedell Sea. It's an example of how broad is the range of interested people attending IPY conferences. It is expected that the conference From Knowledge to Action will bring together over 2,000 Arctic and Antarctic researchers, policy- and decision-makers, and a broad range of interested parties from academia, industry, non-government, education and circumpolar communities including indigenous peoples.