New London — One more historic moment played out Friday in a room checkered with history.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft and his counterparts from the seven other Arctic nations on Friday formally established the Arctic Coast Guard Forum, through which they will work out how to operate collectively in the area, which is seeing increased human activity along The Northern Sea Route amid melting sea ice.

A rapidly warming Arctic climate has melted sea ice, making way for increased maritime traffic and greater human activity in previously inaccessible areas.

The leaders gathered for three days before establishing the forum at a brief, formal ceremony in the Coast Guard Academy's Henriques Room, which is covered wall to wall in murals depicting various dates and activities in Coast Guard history.

Each of the leaders signed a copy of the statement, and took a copy to take back to their respective home countries.

The U.S. is an Arctic nation because of Alaska, which was purchased from Russia in 1867. The eight-country Arctic Council, made up of nations with Arctic territory, was established to promote cooperation and coordination among them, indigenous groups and other Arctic inhabitants.

In 2011 the Arctic Council signed a binding search and rescue agreement and a binding agreement on environmental protection.

"But these binding agreements had no mechanism to implement operations, which really falls on the shoulders of the coast guards of the Arctic nations," Zukunft told reporters after the signing. "The fact that we signed this statement, this joint statement among these Arctic nations, is symbolic of the fact that we see this as imperative."

The leaders will use the forum to identify top priorities in the Arctic, such as safety and environmental issues.

In the near term, their discussions won't include issues as contentious as freedom of navigation, Zukunft said, "which for the United States is a sensitive issue as we are the only member of the Arctic Council nations that has not ratified the Law of the Sea Convention."

"We have an opportunity to lay out a strategic framework for the Arctic, to make it a region that focuses on humanitarian concerns, on environmental concerns, on the way of life of indigenous tribes, and not as a warfighting domain," Zukunft said. "An area that we can work with collegially and not as adversaries."

Asked by a reporter whether some sort of a cooperative agreement could exist between the U.S. and Russia, which has 40 icebreakers, including some that are nuclear powered, Zukunft said, "Absolutely. This forum is truly about sharing information."

"Many of the Arctic Council nations are constrained in their resources,"  he continued. "Some more so than others."

Zukunft noted the importance of his Russian counterpart, Adm. Yuri Alekseyev, being present and having "open and frank" dialogues about the important issues in the Arctic.

"Russia has the preponderance of the resources when it comes to the Arctic domain," Zukunft said. "So it's critical to have them at the table if we're going to have a joint statement that really has some unity."

The most imminent priority for the U.S. Coast Guard in the Arctic is another icebreaker. Currently, the service has two active icebreakers, one heavy and one medium-sized. When Zukunft was a cadet at the academy, "we had seven," he said.

A new icebreaker would cost about $1 billion and take at least 10 years to build. The Coast Guard is working with at least six other federal stakeholders that have interests in the Arctic, Zukunft said, to examine "what you need an icebreaker to do in the 21st century."

"We need to look at every possibility of accelerating a timeline once that funding becomes available to deliver this new capability," he said.

During the first visit by a sitting president to the Arctic, President Barack Obama in Seward, Alaska, in September called for speeding up the acquisition and building of new icebreakers, a historic moment, Zukunft said, that underscored the nation's commitment to Arctic region.

The region will be studied by the Center for Arctic Study and Policy, known as CASP, established in 2014 at the academy as a think-tank for the Coast Guard for strategy and policy in the Arctic. CASP recently named Rachel Perron as its executive director.

CASP is modeled on the U.S. Military Academy's Combatting Terrorism Center.

"The idea is that having some ability to plug academic thinking into headquarters operation enables more refined analysis and more robust development of strategy because academics have a different perspective than the folks at headquarters, quite frankly, and that's just the nature of the culture, but it can be helpful to cross-fertilize," said Dr. Rebecca Pincus, the faculty research chair for CASP.

CASP is working on projects that include the increasing ship traffic through the Bering Strait region. Given that in 2016 a cruise ship is expected to traverse the Northwest Passage, CASP is assessing the search and rescue capacity in the Arctic.

In the summer months, the Coast Guard has two H60 helicopters positioned in the Arctic, Zukunft said. Between those two helicopters, he said, the Coast Guard can probably recover "maybe 15 people."

"We cannot recover 3,000 people," he said. "The nearest vessel may be days if not weeks away."

Zukunft said the Coast Guard needs to work with the cruise ship industry and other commercial industries to see what they're doing to mitigate risk.

After the signing, cadets performed a regimental review in honor of the forum. All the delegations attended except the Russian delegation, who had to depart just after the signing for their flight. 

All members of the forum are expected to reconvene within the next six months.

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: @JuliaSBergman