Authors: Marianne Kroglund, Tove Lundeberg
1.1
What can be done to prepare for changes in the Arctic?
The coming decades will see many changes in the Arctic – changes in the economy, population, climate and environment.
Factors driving these changes include growth in the world demand and use of energy and mineral resources, industrial and infrastructure development, and changes in demographic patterns and land use. Projected changes in average and extreme temperature and precipitation, warmer oceans, rising sea level and declining snow and ice cover on land and at sea, as well as the changes in social and economic development play an essential role in shaping the future. The implications of these changes require sound scientific knowledge as a basis for developing appropriate and effective policy responses.
In 2013, in recognition of the changes occurring in the Arctic and the need for Arctic communities and governments to respond to them, the Arctic Council requested the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) to “produce information to assist local decision-makers and stakeholders in three pilot regions in developing adaptation tools and strategies to better deal with climate change and other pertinent environmental stressors”.
The project Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic (AACA) is the response to this request: an assessment of the key drivers of change, how these drivers are interacting, and how human and natural communities are responding to or could respond to these changes in the future.
To date, most Arctic Council assessments of Arctic change have focused on identifying and describing the science related to specific challenges and ongoing change within a given Arctic system. The AACA moves beyond assessing the state of science, and focuses on the question What can be done to prepare for Arctic changes? The project ultimately intends to enable more informed, timely and responsive decision-making in a rapidly changing Arctic – to aid decision-makers to respond to the challenges, while taking judicious advantage of the opportunities, now and in the future.
1.2
Need for local and regional perspectives and responses
The challenges and opportunities resulting from a rapidly changing Arctic have local, national and regional specificity, and vary depending on climatic, geographic, political and socio-economic conditions. AACA therefore explores three pilot regions; the Barents area, the Baffin Bay/Davis Strait region and the Bering/Chukchi/Beaufort region (Figure 1.1).
This report presents perspectives from the economically, socially and culturally diverse Barents area. This region is home to a number of indigenous peoples and contains unique ecosystems and biodiversity values. It is rich in renewable and non-renewable resources, which form the base for production in forestry, fisheries, mining, agriculture and the hydrocarbon industry, as well as tourism and local-scale economic activities such as herding, hunting and gathering. Broad socio-economic trends at the global as well as regional scale, will impact all these actors and sectors.
The Arctic is warming faster than the global average and this is expected to continue. In the Barents area, as in the Arctic as a whole, changes in precipitation and extreme weather events will affect offshore activities, transport and infrastructure. Changes in climate will have direct impacts on snow and ice, as well as on terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. In addition to climate change, the region’s ecosystems are also influenced by several other impacts of human activities, such as chemical pollution, invasive species, and increased shipping and industrial developments. The end result is cumulative and cascading impacts on ecosystems and societies in the area. Local communities and indigenous peoples are among the first to face the direct consequences of change in the Arctic, owing to their dependence upon, and close relationship with the environment and its resources, not only for food and income but also, especially for indigenous peoples as the basis for their cultural and social identity.
Efforts to enhance adaptation, adaptive capacity and resilience are needed in order to lessen undesirable impacts of existing and future consequences of climatic, social and economic change.
Furthermore, the earlier the capacity to adapt is integrated into planning and policy decisions, the better equipped society will be to cope with additional changes.
Key messages
• The Barents area is undergoing rapid environmental and societal change. The implications of these changes require sound scientific knowledge as a basis for developing appropriate and effective policy responses. The earlier the capacity to adapt is integrated into planning and policy decisions, the better equipped society will be to cope with additional changes.
• Challenges and opportunities have local and regional specificity. By integrating knowledge from many different fields of expertise, and across regions with large cultural diversity, multiple uses and users of local resources, and ambitious development plans for the future, this report provides a sound basis for informed, timely and responsive decision-making in the Barents area.
• Adaptation to change, and building adaptive capacity and resilience, is a dynamic process. One that is constantly evolving in response to an increasing knowledge base as well as to the actual or expected effects of change.
Building shared knowledge and understanding is key.
Owing to the social, economic and environmental diversity of the Barents area, there are different views, expectations and concerns about the future of the region, the changes expected and what can be done to prepare for and adapt to these changes.
The capacity of the region to adapt depends on social and environmental contexts (e.g. demography and economic diversity), as well as on conflicting interests, decision-making power and capacity, and access to relevant knowledge.
This report provides a knowledge base for understanding Arctic change and its impacts upon communities and ecosystems in the Barents area, as well as tools for adaptation. It presents insights and perspectives that can help society become better equipped to cope with, and even thrive in a rapidly changing Arctic. Mitigation actions, including the essential mitigation of greenhouse gases, will increase the potential for successful adaption to Arctic change by local/regional actors, through decreasing the rate of change to which ecosystems and human systems must adapt, and over the long term through limiting the amplitude of that change. Adaptation and mitigation must therefore proceed in parallel.
1.3
Outline of the Barents area report
This report summarizes existing knowledge related to past, present and possible future changes within a section of the Arctic – in this case the Barents area (Figure 1.2). The geographic scope includes the Barents Sea as well as the adjacent terrestrial
areas, and Svalbard and Franz Josef Land. Thus, the study area is broader than the ‘Barents Region’ as defined by the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC; www.beac.st/en). This report sometimes also covers the neighboring regions of Yamalo-Nenets. This reflects the social, economic and environmental continuity to these nearby regions for some issues. This broader area is referred to here as the ‘Barents area’ or the ‘Barents study area’. The term ‘Barents Region’ is only used in the context of the defined BEAC area.
The assessment is based on peer-reviewed publications, indigenous and local knowledge, and other documented information and data. By applying a ‘resilience and adaptation lens’ to existing information and assessments, it has been possible to identify and highlight the key local and regional perspectives that will provide decision-makers with the information they need to prepare for and respond to the challenges, while taking well-judged advantage of the opportunities.
The report comprises ten chapters. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the current status of environmental and socio-economic conditions in the region, while Chapter 3 gives insights into regional and local knowledge on adaptation.
Chapter 4 outlines future socio-economic and climate changes in the region based on observed trends and model projections.
The construction of future scenarios and narratives based on stakeholder consultation is discussed in Chapter 5, as a tool for identifying adaptation needs and evaluating strategies.
Additional analyses of impacts from climatic, environmental and socio-economic drivers and their interaction, and as well Figure 1.1 The three pilot regions for the project Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic. Blue lines delimit Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs).
AACA terrestrial regions Bering, Chukchi, Beaufort (BCB) Baffin Bay, Davis Strait (BBDS) Barents BBDS Barents
BCB
AACA marine regions Large marine ecosystem (LMEs) boundaries
Baffin Bay
Davis Strait Bering
Chukchi -Beaufort
Barents
as key consequences of projected changes, are discussed in Chapter 6, with particular emphasis given to indigenous peoples perspectives in Chapter 7. A resilience approach to adaptation is introduced in Chapter 8, and applied to studies of several local contexts to test the utility of developing a framework of resilience indicators. Chapter 9 on adaptation options highlights the many changes that will need to be addressed within the Barents area in the context of multiple stressors (environmental and climatic, societal, institutional and governance, and political and economic). The chapter illustrates different adaptation processes, barriers and limits to adaptation, and governing tools. Chapter 10 – the Synthesis chapter – places adaptation within the context of broader policy goals related to sustainable development and highlights those social processes that will need strengthening in order to support long-term adaptation action to the multiple and interacting changes expected in the coming decades.
1.4
Way forward
The Arctic and the regions explored as part of the AACA project are complex systems undergoing rapid environmental and societal change. By integrating knowledge from many different fields of expertise, and across regions with large cultural diversity, multiple uses and users of local resources, and ambitious development plans for the future, AACA has broken new ground. Using a multidisciplinary approach, applying this across wide geographical and societal scales,
and looking decades ahead has been a challenge. Nevertheless, building shared knowledge and understanding of cumulative and cascading impacts is key to developing effective policy responses, such as adaptation actions, enhancing resilience and implementing of mitigation measures. Adaptation to change, and building adaptive capacity and resilience, is an evolving and dynamic process, constantly responding to an increasing knowledge base as well as to the actual or expected effects of change. It is a learning process, in which the Arctic Council can also play a constructive role for many years to come.
Figure 1.2 The Barents area, as defined in this pilot study. The terrestrial areas follow relevant administrative boundaries within the four countries.
The marine area comprises the Barents Sea Large Marine Ecosystem (LME).
Barents Sea LME Svalbard
Franz Josef Land Arctic Ocean
Novaya Zemlya
Kara Sea
Finnmark
Troms Norwegian Sea
Murmansk oblast
Lappland
Norrbotten
Oulu Republic
of Karelia Västerbotten
Nordland
Arkhangelsk oblast
Komi Republic Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Nenets Autonomous Okrug