As usual, our annual series of Polar Aspect MACs began with a return to Wycombe Abbey for the fifth Wycombe Model Arctic Council (WYCOMAC 5).  It was a joy to be back!

As with the WYCOMAC 4 conference last year, WYCOMAC 5 was set in Wycombe Abbey’s senior management boardroom, complete with a small annex where delegates could conduct informal discussions.  Each year, WYCOMAC delegates — most new, a few returning — seem to make better and better use of the diplomatic possibilities that such an intimate space affords them.  This year, a full complement of 14 delegates from nine schools even used the management’s own whiteboard to map out their approach to the issue for discussion: renewable-energy development in the Arctic.

It’s just as well that delegates did.  Their negotiations were fraught, with delegates playing the Indigenous Permanent Participant organisations especially concerned that the potentially ‘green colonialist’ aspects of such development were not being taken sufficiently into account.  In the end, the delegates managed jointly to agree their declaration on the issue, but the delegate from the Saami Council using her closing speech to warn her colleagues that it could only be considered a first step towards resolving it!

Congratulations to them — not only for concluding their meetings with an agreement, but also for having developed valuable skills in finding consensus despite real differences, which will serve them well no matter where life takes them after school.

And the delegates gave us some lovely testimonials about their experience — a selection:

• Amazing experience! Very welcoming, positive, and collaborative.
• I’ve learned quite a bit more now although I still feel that there is much more to discover — I’ve realized that the Arctic is so much more complicated and made up of so many more components than previously thought!
• I felt that I better understood the emotional connection that many Indigenous peoples feel towards the Arctic.
• Thank you for everything so much, I’ve really enjoyed this!

Many thanks as always to Wycombe Abbey for hosting WYCOMAC, and to Caitlin Fox for serving as WYCOMAC Deputy Director for a third consecutive year!

And I’m pleased to report that Wycombe Abbey has invited us back for WYCOMAC 6 in January 2026.