The Arctic Council is an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among Arctic States, Indigenous communities and peoples on issues of common importance. The rising geo-political importance of the Arctic and the onset of climate change has resulted in the Council becoming a focus of increasing interest from both inside and beyond the Arctic. This has resulted in new demands placed on the Council, attracted an increasing number of participants and instigated a period of transformation as Arctic states work to find a way to balance conflicting demands for improving the effectiveness of the Council and taking care of national interests. This paper considers if during this time of change the Council is having an impact upon the issues it was formed to address i.e. environmental protection and sustainable development. To provide answers it looks at how the Council operates and through the lens of biodiversity identifies drivers and barriers to the Councils institutional effectiveness; providing an understanding of the norms and rules which constitute the Council and which are central its problem-solving abilities. It is clear that the Council is changing and how it operates is evolving in response to the increasing attention paid to all things Arctic. However, challenges to ensuring effective outcomes from its activities remain and without clear strategies many of the Councils efforts can appear ad-hoc and without due recourse to forward planning. However, when clear and detailed plans are in place to guide the work of the Council as for biodiversity then glimpses can be seen of its potential to act as an agent of change.

北极理事会是一个政府间论坛，旨在促进北极国家，土著社区和人民在共同重要的问题上进行合作，协调与互动。北极日益上升的地缘政治重要性和气候变化的开始使安理会成为北极内外越来越多的关注焦点。这导致对安理会提出了新的要求，吸引了越来越多的参与者，并启动了一段转型期，因为北极国家正在努力寻找一种方法，以平衡各种相互矛盾的要求，以提高安理会的效力并维护国家利益。本文考虑了在这一变化时期，理事会是否对它为解决环境保护和可持续发展而成立的问题产生影响。为了提供答案，它考察了安理会的运作方式，并通过生物多样性的视角确定了导致安理会机构效力的动因和障碍；提供对构成安理会以及解决问题能力至关重要的规范和规则的理解。显然，随着对北极所有事物的关注日益增加，安理会正在发生变化，其运作方式也在不断发展。但是，确保其活动取得有效成果的挑战仍然存在，没有明确的战略，安理会的许多努力可能是临时性的，而且没有适当的前瞻性计划。但是，如果制定了明确而详细的计划来指导理事会在生物多样性方面的工作，那么就可以一窥其作为变革推动者的潜力。