Save the Arctic
Greenpeace campaign
Save the Arctic is a Greenpeace campaign to protect the Arctic, principally by preventing oil drilling and unsustainable industrial fishing in the area completely, surrounded by an Arctic-Environmental economics-Zone. The campaign, begun in 2012, calls for a sanctuary in the uninhabited high seas area around the North Pole, similar to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. The campaign aims to begin this process by prompting a United Nations resolution on protection for the Arctic. Due to Russian invasion in Ukraine, world's 13% oil reserves could be a melting point in the Arctic.
Background
The Arctic may contain around 20% of the world's remaining undiscovered oil and gas resources. As most easily extractable fossil fuel reserves have been exploited, and the Arctic ice pack shrinks, governments and oil companies have begun to look for new resources in the Arctic.
Given these possible threats, in 2008 the European Parliament proposed opening negotiations on a treaty to protect the Arctic.
Support
Greenpeace began the campaign aiming to take a million signatures supporting the campaign to place on the sea bed at the North Pole in April 2013. At the beginning of 2013, the petition registered over 2.5 million signatures. The petition will be accompanied on the sea bed by a flag designed by young people, in partnership with the Girl Guides and Vivienne Westwood.
“Save the Arctic” enters the record as greenpeace campaign. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Save, Arctic and Greenpeace can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Save the Arctic” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Save, Arctic and Greenpeace provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7428095. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012, 2008 and 2013.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Save the Arctic”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Save the Arctic primary sources, Save the Arctic archive and Save research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Save the Arctic”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Save the Arctic” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.