The Arctic Environment Times

2 THE ARCTIC ENVIRONMENT TIMES - August 2002

“The Arctic region is a global indicator of the impacts of pollution and climate change for the whole world” Arctic Council at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, August 2002.

comes during summer when it may get overheated and has to take to the sea to cool off. Blubber is not just an effective insulator against cold. It is also an important reserve for nutrition and survival, not least for rein- deer, who have little access to grazing dur- ing winter, and for polar bears, who must often live for weeks and even months with- out seals, their main prey. The blubber plays a particularly important role for den- ning females. A pregnant bear comes ashore in late autumn to dig a den in the snow. There she gives birth to two very small cubs around Christmas. The births are premature, as the cubs are naked and blind with a weight around 250 grams. The female bear stays in the den for six months, without anything to eat. When the cubs emerge from the den in March or April, each of them has gained 10 kilos. How is it possible for their mother to survive for so long without food and to raise two cubs that have drained 20 kilos from her body? The answer is that the bear’s fat is transformed to rich, nourishing milk for her offspring, and she has no need to draw protein from her muscles. When the female bear leaves continued from page 1••• the den and heads for the sea ice with her cubs she is lean and her fat reserves are small. But she is still strong and fast, able to hunt seals for herself and her cubs. Arctic ecosystems are commonly seen as particularly vulnerable because their species are few. Tropical ecosystems are considered more robust because of their species richness. This is only partly true; though plants and animals in the tropics are highly specialized, Arctic species can often demonstrate a remarkable ability to adapt as living conditions change. The Svalbard archipelago is a good exam- ple. There are no indigenous lemmings or other small rodents on the islands. Hence, falcons, owls and other birds of prey are also absent. The large glaucous gull has taken on their role, and lives on chicks from eiders and seabirds – it is even able to catch the small, fast flying auk in the air. Because lemmings and other rodents are absent, the arctic fox, too, has to turn to other little prey. In Svalbard, the fox hunts ducks and waders on their nests and has become a scavenger that collects dead birds under bird cliffs. It builds depots for the winter and it follows the polar bear on its seal hunt onto the ice during wintertime. Arctic foxes can often travel miles away from any shore. Fox tracks have been observed on the middle of the sea ice between Greenland and Svalbard. There are also unique ecological adapta- tions in the Arctic’s marine environment. Scientists have found that algae can grow profusely under the sea ice, thereby estab- lishing an upside-down sea-bottom system

that nourish plankton, that in turn is food for fish, seabirds, seals and whales. When the ice recedes in spring, the exposed, nutri- tious seawater is exposed to 24 hours of sunlight that leads to sudden, intense marine production. This, combined with upwelling of nutrients from the seafloor, are the main reasons why northern seas such as the Bering Sea and the Barents Sea are such important commercial fishing grounds. Though there are few plant and animal species in the Arctic, some of them can appear in impressive numbers. Some flowers cover the ground as huge red, yellow and white carpets during

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE ARCTIC

P a c i f i c O c e a n

A leu tian Is lan ds

Kamchatka

A m ur

Okhotsk Sea

Koryaks Mts.

Bering Sea

Y u k o n R iv e r

summertime. Reindeer roam around in herds that can reach thousands of heads, and some seabird colonies have

Al as k a R a n g e

Kolyma Mts.

ALASKA (USA)

Bering Strait

Ko lyma Rive r

Al d a n

Che r sk yi R idg e

Br oo ks R an g e

R o c k y Mo u n t a i n s

Chukchi Sea

tens of thousands, some- times even millions of inhabitants. But this richness is also a rea- son for environmental concern. The ice-edge and between the floes, where marine

Mackenzie Mountains

L en a Ri ve r

East Siberian Sea

V er kh o ya n s k R i d ge

M ack en zi e Ri ve r

Great Slave Lake

New Siberian Islands

Le na River

Lake Athabasca

Great Bear Lake

Lake Baikal

Canada Basin

Laptev Sea

A r c t i c O c e a n

Banks Island

CANADA

Victoria Island

C e n t r a l S i b e r i a n U p l a n d

Ta ymir Pen ins ul a

Makarov Basin

Lake Winnipeg

Arctic species can often demonstrate a remarkable ability to adapt as living conditions change.

North Land

Amundsen Basin

Ye nis ey

Alpha Ridge

Y enise y Ri ve r

Ellesmere Island

Hudson Bay

O b R iv e r

RUSSIA

Nansen Basin

Ob R i ve r

Lomonosov Ridge

Foxe Basin

Kara Sea

Franz Josef Land

James Bay

W e s t S i b e r i a n P l a i n

Nansen Gakkel Ridge

Baffin Island

I rtysh Riv er

life is so rich, are also the places where oil spills get trapped and stay because it is so diffi- cult to clean them up. On the flat tundra, per- mafrost prevents pollutants from sinking into the ground. Hazardous sub- stances remain in ponds and wetlands important to water birds and reindeer, and low temperatures slow down their deterioration. This has far-reaching eco- logical effects that are often more serious than in more temperate regions. Vehicles can tear up the thin active layer above the permafrost, exposing the frozen ground to melting. Because re- growth is so slow in the

Novaya Zemlya

Fram Strait

O b Ri v er

Baffin Bay

Svalbard

I rt ys h R ive r

GREENLAND (Denmark)

L a b r a d o r

Spitsbergen

Davis Strait

Barents Sea

M t s . U r a l s

Lake Saint Jean

Bear Island

Greenland Sea

K a m a Ri v e r

Kola Peninsula

JanMayen

White Sea

Nor th D vi na

V o lg a R iv er

Lake Onega

Norwegian Sea

ICELAND

FINLAND

Lake Ladoga

V ol g a

Gulfof Bothnia

Faeroe Islands

A t l a n t i c O c e a n

NORWAY

Z a p. Dvi na

SWEDEN

Baltic Sea

North Sea

R h ei n

- 5 000 - 3 000 - 2 000 - 1 000 - 500

- 100

0

50

100

200

300

500 1 000 1 500 2 000 3 000 4 000

UNEP/GRID-Arendal, Philippe Rekacewicz, 1997

Arctic, water and thawing can easily trans- form a vehicle track to a flowing river in a very short time. The Arctic provides opportunities for our modern world – but challenges too. What can we do about it? There are some things that everyone should agree upon. Indigenous people have made a living in the High North for hundreds, sometimes thou- sands of years. They have developed unique lifestyles in harmony with the land and the sea. But these societies are now threatened. Indigenous peoples’ cultures and rights need to be respected, but should also be brought into line with the modern worlds’ political agenda. This include their right to find their own way to the modern world. There is a need to expand our knowl- edge of the Arctic’s ecosystems so that we are better able to manage its riches. There is also a need to enhance our awareness of the Arctic. And finally, we must foster polit- ical mechanisms and international agree- ments and instruments to secure the proper management and conservation of this very important part of our planet.

UNEP/GEO-3: CONFLICT OVER USE OF LAND

Extending 14 million square kilometres, twice the size of Australia, the Arctic lands are rich in resources with large potential for oil and gas drilling in particular. This is what the recently released United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s Global Environment Outlook report (GEO3) states. Not only have the Arctic states lately become a popular travel destination increasing tourism and a growing concern that tourists will put extra pressures on wildlife, water and other basic necessities. But the possibilities of exploitation of the huge deposits of oil, gas and minerals in the Arctic put serious pressures on the land. The Arctic land consists of three main sub-sys- tems, the high polar desert, the tundra and the forest-tundra. Under most of this land is a layer of permafrost, which is defined as ground that remains frozen for at least two summers in a row. This layer can reach depths of 1500 meters. When the upper level melts in the spring, the melt-water cannot sink below the remaining permafrost and flows rapidly over the frozen surface into streams and rivers.

The permafrost melts more easily with warmer temperatures and exacerbates an already wide- spread and increasing amount of erosion. In recent years approximately 70 million ha of tun- dra has been degraded through destruction of soil and vegetative cover resulting from prospect- ing, mineral development, cars, construction and, at certain location, overgrazing by reindeer. Arctic governments have taken action to protect about 15 per cent of their land. However, that figure is misleading because nearly 50 per cent of the protected areas are classified as Arctic desert or glacier. These highly protected areas are also the least productive part of the Arctic. In Greenland most of the protected area is ice cap.

FACTS Arctic land comprises of:

For further reading: GEO-3 www.grida.no/geo

• Polar desert: bare soils and rocks with spares plant communities; • The Tundra: vast, open plain with continuous plant cover; • The forest-tundra: patches of continuous forest interspersed with tundra-like open areas.

AMAP (1997) Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the Arctic Environment Report www.arcticpeoples.org/ working-groups/various_reports.htm CAFF (2002) www.arctic-council.org/pmeetings/oulu02/ sao_docs/11_2_1_caffreport.pdf

Thor S. Larsen UNEP/GRID-Arendal www.grida.no