Arctic Council Working Group Recommendations
| Project | Type | # | Outcome | Report | Year | FEC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Key finding | 6 | Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and stewardship is important for successful management of Arctic wetlands. Participation and leadership by Indigenous Peoples is needed for decision-making and management of Arctic wetlands. Indigenous Peoples’ hold extensive and unique knowledge regarding the wetlands in their homelands. Inmany places, long-term indigenous stewardship has partly shaped present-day wetland biodiversity and functioning, maintaining traditional land-use practices that acts to preserve wetland resilience. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Key finding | 7 | The extensive scientific, Indigenous, institutional, and local knowledge on Arctic wetlands could inform broad and rapid actions to protect, conserve and restore wetlands if supported by policy. Noting the stewardship and wealth of knowledge of Arctic communities, and existing science, the key obstacles to scaling-up research or case studies are not due to lack of knowledge. Multiple case studies and research projects have demonstrated that protection, conservation, or restoration of degraded Arctic wetlands offers substantial benefits for water-centric ecosystem services, biodiversity, and climate change mitigation. In addition to Indigenous, institutional, and local knowledge of wetlands, there is a considerable and broad scientific knowledge base on wetlands protection, conservation, restoration, and management which dates back many decades. All of this knowledge is crucial for adaptive and holistic management of wetlands. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Key finding | 8 | Improved public and policy maker understanding of wetland functions and vulnerability would likely foster greater interest in protecting and conserving Arctic wetlands and strengthen involvement in promoting sustainable wetland use. Yet, the ways in which public opinion and networks of interested commercial and civil society organizations influence the development and implementation of wetlands conservation, restoration and stewardship in the Arctic are poorly understood. Systematic knowledge of the array of interest organizations’ relationships to wetlands and how they engage on questions of balancing conservation and use would support the development of more coherent and effective policies. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Key finding | 9 | Policy inconsistencies and practical difficulties with implementation are obstacles in wetland management or restoration efforts. Goal conflicts or gaps in policies undermine successful implementation of good wetland management or restoration practices. Key challenges include: (i) inconsistencies or conflicts between different national-level policies or between national and sub-national policies, (ii) the organization of responsibility between multiple agencies with differing mandates, and (iii) challenges in ensuring effective coordination and communication between agencies and the public. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Key finding | 10 | Substantial and rapid benefits for ecosystem services such as climate stability, biodiversity conservation and hydrological systems could be gained through restoration of drained or degraded Arctic peatlands. Degraded wetlands exist in all Arctic states and are particularly common in Boreal regions where extensive drainage for forestry, mining or peat extraction has occurred, or in Tundra where vulnerable permafrost wetlands have been degraded by unsustainable human land-use. Re-wetting of artificially drained or restoration of damaged wetlands could lead to substantial increases in natural carbon sink capacities. To achieve long-term success, restoration efforts should be planned together with conservation of undamaged systems as part of a landscape scale approach to sustainable management. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Key finding | 11 | Coordinated transboundary management of wetlands is needed, but different national systems for wetland classification challenge such efforts. There are crucial differences between wetland classification systems. A uniform system for comparing and harmonizing existing Arctic wetland classifications would help to better plan wetland actions that span borders, traditions, and cultures. New developments should consider the value and legacy associated with existing national classification systems and Indigenous Knowledge and Local Knowledge of wetland areas. Development of new classification systems, maps and databases should ensure that legacy data remains useful, allow for conversion between systems and link to Indigenous Knowledge and use of wetlands. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Key finding | 12 | There is a need for new pan-Arctic wetland maps based on a uniform approach, thus ensuring comparable accuracy and data quality across the full Arctic domain. Such mapping efforts should ideally train and validate algorithms using existing national wetland inventories, relevant institutional data, inclusive of Indigenous Knowledge and/or input from Arctic communities. Maps are needed that show the spatial extent of discrete wetland complexes at high resolution and should separate mineral wetlands from organic wetlands (peatlands). On the shorter term, new maps of wetland extent will be bound to one specific classification system; it is not possible to address the diversity of existing systems. Over the longer term, boundaries between maps and monitoring dissolve. Spatial wetland data can be stored in spatial databases that allow flexible adaptation to different classification systems. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Key finding | 13 | There are numerous models for providing financial support to conservation or restoration of wetlands. Each of the Arctic states has developed ways to provide financial support for wetlands conservation and restoration efforts. While some of the particular strengths and benefits of each set of policies, program or model are country context-specific, many lessons are generalizable and therefore useful for expanding collaboration across the Arctic states. A systematic review of these national-level restoration financing initiatives would provide valuable insights into development of effective tools. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 1 | Encourage Arctic cooperation to amplify efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions both inside and outside the Arctic. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 2 | Actively support efforts to maintain or strengthen natural ecosystem capacity for climate change mitigation, primarily through conservation and restoration measures in Arctic and Boreal wetlands. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 3 | Initiate collaboration between Arctic states, Indigenous Peoples organisations and relevant stakeholders to harmonize how climate and biodiversity benefits reached through wetland management and restoration efforts are reported to international conventions on climate mitigation and biodiversity. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 4 | Develop pan-Arctic inventory of protected wetlands and completed, ongoing or planned restoration projects, Indigenous led and partnership projects, with country cases contributed by each Arctic State and with the list to be managed by CAFF. Such cases can serve as pilot and demonstration projects for other rapid action. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 5 | Use short-lists of known northern wetland sites in need of protection, conservation or restoration to support national-level action plans. Such actions should be targeted to the most promising sites, including those that may be located outside the Arctic. Wetland protection, conservation and restoration would be more effective if done in direct collaboration with Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and/or stakeholders and applied at the landscape level. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 6 | Develop a uniform inventory of degraded Arctic wetlands with potential for restoration. Many candidate sites for restoration are known, but the exact extent and location of other damaged or degraded wetland systems remains poorly known. Encourage Arctic states to identify data gaps where wetland extent and condition are unknown and can be prioritized for inventory. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 7 | Inventory and review existing national policies relating to wetlands with an eye on using a watershed approach and identifying conflicting or inconsistent goals, overlapping or unclear responsibility among governmental departments and entities, and gaps in communication. Identifying and addressing these issues would enable more effective governance of wetlands and balancing conservation and Indigenous and other user needs to achieve more effective stewardship. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 8 | Ensure that national conservation or development plans that impact wetlands meaningfully engage Arctic communities, Indigenous Peoples, and stakeholders to consider the broader landscape impacts of changes to wetlands, including developments that may affect wetlands within river basins. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 9 | Wetland policy should recognize the legacy and future importance of Indigenous Peoples’ stewardship and the need for collaborative, integrated management of Arctic wetlands. As outlined in the Arctic Wetlands and Indigenous Peoples Study, develop pilot studies on comanagement practices to support meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples in future Arctic wetlands projects, and encourage indigenous participation in developing wetlands inventories covering traditional use areas. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 10 | Develop and share between Arctic states outreach and communication strategies and tools to explain the values of wetlands, the threats to wetlands and provide examples of wetland restoration success stories. Material for the full Arctic region could be complemented with materials specific to knowledge from different geographic regions, communities, and Indigenous Peoples. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 11 | Support research on how public opinion, in national, regional, local, and Indigenous communities as well as societal interests’ policy and advocacy networks affect development and implementation of Arctic wetlands policy, restoration efforts, and management. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 12 | Strengthen wetland resilience through supporting meaningful engagement of Indigenous Peoples and/or Local Communities in wetlands inventories, and management plans. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 |