Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

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Chapter 7 · Indigenous peoples’ perspectives

Nenets. This chapter presents the full outcome for Finnmark (Section 7.3.1.1) and preliminary results for the Nenets AO (Section 7.3.1.2). The aim is that by including key drivers of change for Arctic ecosystems and using local data, traditional knowledge and expert knowledge, this study will help to establish whether GLOBIO3 could be a useful tool for assessing impacts on biodiversity in the Arctic. For this reason, key drivers of change for Arctic ecosystems are used as well as local data, traditional knowledge and expert knowledge (van Rooij et al., 2017). Additional map data of the Laponia area were derived from the Swedish RenGIS model. RenGIS was developed with the support of 51 reindeer herding units in Sweden, and offers much guidance as to how participatory mapping can inform and empower practitioners on the ground on issues related to land-use change (see Section 7.4.1). 7.3.1.1 GLOBIO 3 – Finnmark, Norway At the local scale, the GLOBIO3 model was first applied to Finnmark county, a core area for Sámi reindeer herding in Norway.The aimwas to determine the current and future impacts of land use,infrastructure development,land fragmentation and climate change on biodiversity. Data from national and local sources were used and included spatial data from ecosystem mapping and municipal zoning plans (for infrastructure development).The projection of future biodiversity was based on the assumption that land use and infrastructural developments found in existing provincial and municipal development plans would be realized by 2030. In addition, extreme climate change was represented by a temperature increase of 7°C in Finnmark added to the future scenario. Figure 7.5 shows the resulting impact maps of land use, infrastructure development, land fragmentation and climate change on present-day (2011) biodiversity. Land use clearly has the greatest impact, followed by land fragmentation and infrastructure development, which both have strong local impacts. The climate change impact is still relatively limited. The corresponding impacts on future (2030) biodiversity are also shown in Figure 7.5. The most eye-catching differences between the current and future sets is seen in the land use and infrastructure maps. The four pressure-related impact maps have also been combined, resulting in a total impact map of the current (2011) and future (2030) biodiversity situation in Finnmark (Figure 7.6). A useful way to envisage the challenge that pastoralists face in moving with their animals through time and space in Finnmark is to overlay their migration routes onto the combined impact maps (Figure 7.7). For reindeer herders, it became clear during the GLOBIO3 GIS workshop on 3 September 2016 in Skaidi, Norway, that the ‘devil is in the detail’. Using insets, the graphic shows three reindeer herding districts: Fálá , Fiettar and Gearretnjárga and compares the situation in 2011 and 2030. By 2030, the reindeer herding districts highlighted are likely to be experiencing significant impacts on biodiversity, mainly through infrastructure developments and land fragmentation. Reindeer herders at the workshop mentioned that some of the large impact areas overlap with calving grounds and important bottleneck zones of migration routes.

of ecosystem change. The aim of the model is to provide policymakers with information about the current and possible future status of biodiversity and expected trends in land-use and ecosystem services for different scenarios or policy options. The GLOBIO3 model is designed such that each of four pressures (land use, infrastructure development, land fragmentation, climate change) are independent, in the sense that they impact biodiversity (expressed in MSA) in different ways. Land use change implies that biodiversity is negatively impacted through loss of natural area, from conversion of land into a different type with a lower intactness (e.g. by urban and agricultural development, forestry, mining, urbanization, and other socio-economic developments). Infrastructure development affects biodiversity negatively by disturbances that can be linked to the presence and use of the infrastructure (e.g. by disturbance caused by cars or people on or near the roads and other installations). Land fragmentation implies a loss of connected nature areas (e.g. representing a barrier to migration of species). Climate change impacts are represented by changes in migration or disappearance of characteristic species from their original natural habitat areas. The structure of the model is such that the impact of the four pressure types can be combined to generate a total impact on biodiversity.The impact of climate change in the current GLOBIO3 model is based on global model data and is limited to cause-effect relations between the fraction of remaining species in a biome and average change in global mean temperature (Bakkenes et al., 2006; Arets et al., 2014; van Rooij et al., 2017).The global model data referred to here are climate output data fromIMAGE (IntegratedModel for theAssessment of Global Environmental Change) and are used to simulate the environmental consequences of human activity worldwide (Stehfest et al., 2014). In this study, an assessment of current and future biodiversity in the circumpolar Arctic was first made with GLOBIO3 based on global data and a baseline scenario from the Rethinking Global Biodiversity Strategies Study (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2010). However, the scenarios in the Rethinking study are based on global macroeconomic assumptions and not adjusted to Arctic conditions (see Figure 7.4). For an accurate analysis at the regional Arctic level, detailed spatial data must be used.