Countries such as Canada and the United States should use the current economic lull "as a window" to plan for sustainable development in the Arctic, according to a recent report.

Authors of the report, released late last month, say the global financial crisis has slowed down the race to develop mineral and gas resources in the Arctic.

That reprieve gives Arctic nations the chance to address some critical needs, such as forming strong, co-ordinated rules for economic activity in the region, said Ross Virginia, one of the co-authors.

"We really should see the slowdown as a window where we should work hard to get some real work done," Virginia, director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., told CBC News on Wednesday.

"This is an opportunity, if policymakers want to take advantage of it, to work hard while activity is slow, to get new agreements in place, understand where the choke points are, where the most critical environments worthy of protection might be."

The report, co-authored by former U.S. ambassadors James Collins and Kenneth Yalowitz, calls for agreements to be made on issues ranging from fishing regulations to dealing with shipping-related environmental disasters such as oil spills.

"As minerals and energy are exploited in the North, as they will be, to do that in the most environmentally friendly way possible — those are the environmental security issues that I think about," said Yalowitz, who heads the Dickey Centre for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.

The report's authors also recommend more funding and a stronger role for the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental group of Arctic nations, including Canada, the U.S., Russia and Norway.

The council should also have a permanent base for the secretariat, they add. The secretariat currently moves to different member countries every few years.