Minutes of the meeting of the Norden Division of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN), UN Headquarters, New York, April 26., 2004

Present:

Sirkka Paikkala, Finland (Chair)
John Jensen, Denmark
Teemu Leskinen, Finland
Botolv Helleland, Norway
Leif Nilsson, Sweden
Staffan Nyström, Sweden
Annette Torensjö, Sweden
Absent: Johnny Andersen, Norway (due to a misunderstanding)

Minutes:

1. Sirkka Paikkala opened the meeting and welcomed everybody to participate. She thanked the members of the division for comprehensive and numerous technical papers as well as active participation in discussions in this UNGEGN meeting.

2. The hoped-for participation of Greenland and the Faroe Islands in the activities of UNGEGN and the Norden Division was discussed. John Jensen reported that Denmark has not yet had personal contacts with them in this matter. The meeting agreed that it is important to promote their participation and decided that before the next division meeting (see item 6) these contacts are made, in order to hopefully meet representatives of Greenland and the Faroes in the meeting. Denmark would be responsible for this, and Botolv volunteered to co-operate in formulating the initiative letters.

3. Botolv Helleland brought up his idea of a joint file of Saami place names of Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish mapping authorities. Some technical aspects and alternatives were discussed. In order to proceed, Botolv volunteered to do some survey on the need, demand and support for this kind of project. Afterwards the division members representing the three mapping authorities would continue discussions on more technical basis. Eventually this work might arrive at Norden Division’s initiative to the mapping authorities.

4. The meeting discussed the UNGEGN Dutch- and German-speaking division’s initiative for a multi-lingual geographic names data network for Europe (EuroGeoNames). In order to make a survey/inventory the project organisation will disseminate a questionnaire to the mapping authorities and geographical names authorities in all European countries by the beginning on 2005. Division members saw that it could be useful to change some thoughts within the division on this project later on.

5. As in the previous division meeting in Helsinki 2003 Sirkka Paikkala brought into discussion her concern about the fact that the present Statute of the UNGEGN does not clearly point out the cultural heritage aspects concerning geographical names and their standardisation. She reintroduced a sketch for some additions to the statute in order to emphasise these aspects. It was decided that this initiative would be taken up for further focus before and in the next division meeting. The statute can be amended next in the UNCSGN 2007.

6. The next Norden Division meeting was discussed. October 2005 was agreed as the most suitable point of time and Norway volunteered to find out whether this meeting could be held in Norway.

7. Sirkka Paikkala thanked everybody and closed the meeting.


Teemu Leskinen
Rapporteur