Arctic Council Working Group Recommendations
| Project | Type | # | Outcome | Report | Year | FEC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CBMP Freshwater Biodiversity Monitoring | Key finding | All countries have data sets that allow for identification of baseline levels for most FECs, but only a few countries (such as Finland and Sweden) have an extensive spatial coverage and very few countries have long time series. Data collection was not exhaustive, and there are likely additional data that exist for each country that may contribute to the assessment of freshwater biodiversity; however, significant gaps will remain even with a more extensive search of existing data sources. | State of the Arctic Freshwater Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring | 2016 | ||
| CBMP Marine Biodiversity Monitoring | Key finding | Increases in the frequency of contagious diseases are being observed | State of the Arctic Marine Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring | 2017 | ||
| CBMP Terrestrial Biodiversity Monitoring | Key finding | Changes in culturally important food resources have implications on the food security and cultures of Indigenous Peoples and Arctic residents. | State of the Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring | 2021 | ||
| Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) | Key finding | 1 | Unique Arctic habitats for flora and fauna, including sea ice, tundra, thermokarst ponds and lakes, and permafrost peatlands have been disappearing over recent decades. | Arctic Biodiversity Trends 2010 – Selected indicators of change | 2010 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Key finding | Research findings make it clear that restoration of damaged or compromised Arctic wetlands ecosystems offers substantial benefits across multiple areas of interest – water-centric ecosystem services, biodiversity, and increasingly over the past decade, climate mitigation. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands Phase 2 Report | 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 | |
| Arctic TEEB | Key finding | 3.3 | Governance: Key Finding 3.3. The TEEB approach can make the diverse values that people hold for nature visible by assessing and communicating the role of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the economy and to society. | The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) for the Arctic: A Scoping Study Executive Summary | 2015 | |
| CBMP Terrestrial Biodiversity Monitoring | Key finding | All but one of the populations number between 1000 and 10 million individuals. Only the Western Palearctic population of the Lesser White-fronted Goose lies on the brink of extinction with just over 100 individuals, and only the midcontinent population of lesser snow geese in North America exceeds 10 million adults. | A Global Audit of the Status and Trends of Arctic And Northern Hemisphere Goose Populations | 2018 | ||
| Key finding | 3 | Observations from those spending much time on the land and sea are necessary in not only understanding local environmental change but also in understanding the effects of environmental changes on human well-being and traditional practices | Project Summary: Bering Sea Sub-Network II | 2015 | ||
| Arctic Species Trend Index (ASTI) | Key finding | 3 | Tracking trends through space and time. 3.1 Spatial analysis of the full ASTI data set (1951 to 2010) started with an evaluation of vertebrate population trend data from around the Arctic. The maps produced from this analysis provide information useful for identifying gaps and setting priorities for biodiversity monitoring programs. 3.2 Mapping trends in vertebrate populations provides information on patterns of biodiversity change over space and time, especially when examined at regional scales. 3.3 Understanding of the causes of Arctic vertebrate population change can be improved by expanding the spatial analysis of ASTI data to include spatial data on variables that represent driversof biodiversity change. | The Arctic Species Trend Index 2011: Key findings from an in-depth look at marine species and development of spatial analysis techniques | 2012 | |
| Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) | Recommendation | 11 | Reduce the threat of pollutants to Arctic biodiversity. a. Support and enhance international efforts and cooperation to identify, assess and reduce existing and emerging harmful contaminants. b. Support the development of appropriate prevention and clean up measures and technologies that are responsive to oil spills in the Arctic, especially in ice-filled waters, such that they are ready for implementation in advance of major oil and gas developments. c. Encourage local and national action to implement best practices for local wastes, enhance efforts to clean-up legacy contaminated sites and include contaminant reduction and reclamation plans in development projects. | Arctic Biodiversity Assessment: Report for Policy Makers | 2013 | |
| 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 | |
| Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) | Recommendation | 4 | Require the incorporation of biodiversity objectives and provisions into all Arctic Council work and encourage the same for on-going and future international standards, agreements, plans, operations and/or other tools specific to development in the Arctic. This should include, but not be restricted to, oil and gas development, shipping, fishing, tourism and mining. | Arctic Biodiversity Assessment: Report for Policy Makers | 2013 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 14 | Support development of wetland classification systems and maps specific to different Arctic Indigenous Peoples based on the words and terms traditionally used to describe wetland types, properties, and functions. Such maps would support wetland stewardship and facilitate communication of their value locally and to policy makers. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) | Recommendation | 13 | Increase and focus inventory, long-term monitoring and research efforts to address key gaps in scientific knowledge identified in this assessment to better facilitate the development and implementation of conservation and management strategies. Areas of particular concern identified through the ABA include components critical to ecosystem functions including important characteristics of invertebrates, microbes, parasites and pathogens. | Arctic Biodiversity Assessment: Report for Policy Makers | 2013 | |
| 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 | |
| Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) | Recommendation | 6 | Develop guidelines and implement appropriate spatial and temporal measures where necessary to reduce human disturbance to areas critical for sensitive life stages of Arctic species that are outside protected areas, for example along transportation corridors. Such areas include calving grounds, den sites, feeding grounds, migration routes and moulting areas. This also means safeguarding important habitats such as wetlands and polynyas. | Arctic Biodiversity Assessment: Report for Policy Makers | 2013 | |
| Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW) | Recommendation | 16 | Support long-term development of open access spatial databases for wetland data that allow interactive use, application of different classification systems and on-the-fly wetland map production. | Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands: Key Findings and Recommendations | 2021 | |
| Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) | Recommendation | 2 | Identify measures for detecting early warnings of biodiversity change and triggering conservation actions.Move towards a stronger reliance on early warnings of ecosystem change, rather than on population trends as triggers for making decisions. Aside from catastrophic die-offs and breeding failure, impacts from changes in sea ice are often incremental, such as a reduced rate of reproduction or survival, or less energy intake from prey. Impacts may take years to be detected in population trends, especially for long-lived animals. Measures such as reduced body condition or changes in ice-dependent prey species are evidence of impacts that can be acted on before declines are detected in abundance or distribution. In some cases these earlier actions will prevent or lessen population declines. Factors to consider in selecting such measures of change include long-term costs and benefits, support by research, ability to be updated, and suitability for determining thresholds for action. | Life Linked to Ice: A guide to sea-ice-associated biodiversity in this time of rapid change | 2013 | |
| Arctic Biodiversity Assessment (ABA) | Recommendation | 15 | Promote public training, education and community-based monitoring, where appropriate, as integral elements in conservation and management. | Arctic Biodiversity Assessment: Report for Policy Makers | 2013 |