These are the six Arctic Indigenous organizations that hold Permanent Participant status in the Arctic Council:

Aleut International Association, Arctic Athabaskan Council, Gwich'in International Council, Inuit Circumpolar Council, Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, and the Saami Council. 

For more information on each Permanent Participant, click on their respective logo below. 

The Indigenous Peoples Secretariat (IPS) was established in 1994 under the guidance of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS). During this time, the category of Permanent Participants (PPs) was being developed for the three Indigenous peoples’ organizations which were observers in the AEPS. The IPS, as recognized in the Ottawa Declaration, is an entity within the Arctic Council Secretariat with its own board, designated budget and work plan and is to perform the following functions:

• Facilitate the participation of Indigenous Peoples’ organizations in the work of the Arctic Council, assist and provide Secretariat support functions to the Permanent Participants primarily in Arctic Council activities, facilitate and assist the Permanent Participants to prepare and submit proposals relevant to the work of the Arctic Council, facilitate the presentation of the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples in the Council’s Working Groups and in meeting of Senior Arctic Officials and Ministers;

• Enhance the capacity of the Permanent Participants to pursue the objectives of the Arctic Council, assist the Permanent Participants develop their internal capacity to participate and intervene in the Arctic Council, and assist the Permanent Participants in the furtherance of their activities in relation to participation and full consultation within the Arctic Council, and assist them in how to best make contributions to the Council’s work;

• Facilitate dialogue and communications among the Permanent Participants and among Permanent Participants and other Arctic Council and related bodies, provide opportunities for co-operative and co-ordinated activities among the Permanent Participants and IPS, facilitate meetings and communication between the Permanent Participants, and facilitate the translation of the communications between the Permanent Participants as far as possible;

• Support the Permanent Participants in carrying out actions to maintain and promote the sustainable development of Indigenous Peoples cultures in the Arctic;

• Gather and disseminate information on and provide and list sources of different forms of knowledge,

• And contribute to raising public awareness of Arctic Council issues through a regularly updated web site and regularly produced newsletters and other publications.

A Governing Board approves and directs the work of IPS each year. The Chair of the Governing Board is chosen among the PPs. The official working language of IPS is English. However, to effectively communicate with the Russian Indigenous peoples, communications are in both English and Russian. IPS is headed by an Executive Secretary, who is responsible to the Governing Board for the daily operations of the Secretariat.

In January 2016, the IPS office was relocated from Copenhagen to its new permanent location in the Fram Centre in Tromso, Norway.