Recommendations

Project Type # Outcome Report Year FEC
CBMP Terrestrial Biodiversity MonitoringAdvice

Coordination: Improved coordination of monitoring is necessary to implement a comprehensive, integrated, ecosystem-based monitoring program envisioned by the CBMP. Coordination is necessary to help achieve additional advice for monitoring presented in the START.

  • Design statistically rigorous sampling methodologies and protocols.
  • Encourage states to implement the CBMP Terrestrial Plan to secure long-term funding for existing monitoring.
  • CAFF, including the CBMP, should take a coordinating role to follow-up on advice from this report. Specific tasks are found in the CBMP Strategic Plan 2021-2025.
State of the Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring2021
Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative (AMBI)Advice3Monitoring temporal trends in plastic ingestion: The northern fulmar, thick-billed murre and black-legged kittiwake should be monitored for temporal trends in plastic pollution ingestion.Plastic Pollution in Seabirds: Developing a program to monitor plastic pollution in seabirds in the pan-Arctic region2021
AdviceInclude biodiversity in national accounting so that the true value of healthy Arctic ecosystems is understood, and the true costs of biodiversity loss are accounted for.Arctic Biodiversity Congress 2014, Co-Chairs Report2014
Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW)Advice6Approaching Engagement: Much can be learned from each Arctic State, their protected areas, their management authorities, and their Indigenous communities. a) Approach Indigenous participation as an opportunity, b) Seek to build partnerships with Indigenous governments, organizations, and communities, c) Engage Indigenous leadership and communities at the beginning of the process, d) Welcome elders, recruit youthArctic Wetlands and Indigenous Peoples Study: An assessment of Indigenous engagement in wetland protected areas2021
Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Arctic MiningAdvice

Establishment of mutually beneficial partnerships with communities impacted by mining operations.

In order to operate effectively, the mining industry needs buy-in from impacted communities (i.e., Social License to Operate). This is especially important across much of the Arctic where Indigenous Peoples and/or local communities often depend on ecosystem services for food security, cultural and spiritual connections and other purposes. Because of differences in cultures and/or values, limited shared understanding and lack of trust, it can be difficult to meaningfully engage with Indigenous and/or local communities, develop positive relationships and work towards common goals. Although there are good examples of where the mining industry operating in the Arctic is working collaboratively with government agencies, communities and others to minimize their impacts on biodiversity, public perception of the mining industry in impacted communities is not always favourable.

Mining industry could:

  • Engage in community partnerships where community members have real input and decision-making authority (e.g., co-management of resources) (Box 4).
  • Provide tangible economic incentives for community residents (e.g., employment at mine or related support jobs and community enhancement efforts)
  • Use of agreements (e.g., “good neighbour”/Impact and Benefit Agreements) (Tolvanen 2018) to attain social license to operate prior to mining activities taking place (Boxes 2 and 4). Agreements could designate, for example, how to monitor impacts and address compensation for unavoidable effects (Tolvanen 2018).
  • Ensure protection of traditional uses of the surrounding area, including linkages to food security and the biodiversity it supports as an important consideration during all phases of the project.

CAFF could:

  • Work with the mining industry and others to continue to develop and share good practices for community engagement and partnerships specific to mining operations.
  • Continue to explore opportunities for further dialogue among Permanent Participants, government agencies and the mining industry to help identify and ultimately achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.
Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Arctic Mining Challenges and Proposed Solutions2019
AdviceDevelop binding agreements related to the conservation and/or sustainable use of biodiversity.Arctic Biodiversity Congress 2014, Co-Chairs Report2014
CBMP Marine Biodiversity MonitoringAdvice

Community-based monitoring networks and community relationship building:

  • Increase the span of networks in the CBMP to include Community-based monitoring networks.
  • Communicate information on changes and the results of monitoring between scientists and the public in both directions. This is crucial to the development of effective management strategies and human activities.
State of the Arctic Marine Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring2017
CBMP Terrestrial Biodiversity MonitoringAdvice

Indigenous Knowledge: The CBMP Terrestrial Plan aims to utilize both Indigenous Knowledge and science. Despite efforts, Indigenous Knowledge has not been systematically included in the START. To obtain a full assessment of the status and trends, better understand relationships and changes, and fill key knowledge gaps, there must be improved engagement with Indigenous Knowledge holders, Indigenous governments, and Indigenous monitoring programs not only in development of assessments but in collaboratively building more comprehensive monitoring programs and initiatives.

  • Improve understanding of the research and monitoring priorities of PPs and Indigenous governments, organizations, and Peoples.
  • Develop long-term partnerships between scientists and Indigenous Knowledge holders to co-develop mutually relevant research and monitoring priorities and programs with equitable participation in all stages of monitoring, beginning with research design, and continuing through implementation, analysis, interpretation, and communication of results.
  • Seek guidance on how institutional resources can align with and support existing Indigenous-led monitoring efforts, the development of new Indigenous-led monitoring programs, and Indigenous models of land stewardship that include monitoring components.
  • Consider and articulate the ways in which programs and findings can support Indigenous land stewardship.
  • Support Indigenous-led monitoring capacity through investments in northern-based research, learning and digital infrastructure and by supporting education, employment, and leadership opportunities for Indigenous Peoples.
  • Ensure monitoring agreements detail mechanisms for the protection and responsible use of data and Indigenous Knowledge, including basic principles of data sovereignty.
  • Increase engagement of Indigenous Peoples within CBMP.
  • Work with PPs to develop strategies to more effectively recognize and reflect Indigenous Knowledge in the CBMP.
State of the Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring2021
Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative (AMBI)Advice5Monitoring microplastics and plastic-associated contaminants: Northern fulmars, thick-billed murres, black-legged kittiwakes and common eiders should be monitored for microplastics and plastic-associated contaminants.Plastic Pollution in Seabirds: Developing a program to monitor plastic pollution in seabirds in the pan-Arctic region2021
AdviceMap biodiversity hot spots and biologically and ecologically sensitive areas at a scale appropriate for industry to use in their planning.Arctic Biodiversity Congress 2014, Co-Chairs Report2014
Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Arctic MiningAdvice

Agreement on data (e.g. cultural and ecological indicators of change) collection, management, and sharing of information. Baseline data and other information about the status and health of plants, animals and ecosystems in and around mine sites are important for the mining industry, communities, government agencies and CAFF. An important challenge is to ensure that data generated by the mining industry are accessible in a form that can inform broader understandings of Arctic biodiversity status and trends.

Government agencies could:

  • Agree to participate in collaborative processes to identify and use common indicators that capture thecultural, social, and economic impacts of mining.
  • Provide data to a common repository where data could be available to be shared.

Mining industry could:

  • Agree to participate in collaborative processes to identify and use common indicators that capture the cultural, social, and economic impacts of mining.
  • Provide data to a common repository where it could be available to be shared.

CAFF could:

  • Provide a common repository to make relevant data about the status and health of plants, animals and ecosystems in the Arctic available for other uses (Box 8).
  • Work in cooperation with others to help develop common methodologies for data collection, analysis, management and reporting by the mining industry.
  • Collect and share good practices for data collection and sharing.
  • Work to ensure data provided to the CAFF is compatible with agency-mandated data collection or other standards where appropriate.
  • Help to develop indicators that capture the relevant cultural, social and economic impacts of mining.
  • Encourage and provide assistance for national and industry adoption of CAFF monitoring plans and indicators as minimum standards for the Arctic.
  • Help to develop relevant/common questions that could be asked of mining activities across the Arctic.
  • Initiate a pilot project(s) that could incorporate elements of data collection and sharing.
  • Create an expert group to address data quality and sharing, to consider how groups can work together and how TK might be equitably utilized with a focus on the engagement of TK holders.
  • Optimize use of information by ensuring that CAFF data initiatives take into account ongoing mining industry data needs, activities and approaches so that they are clearly defined.
Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Arctic Mining Challenges and Proposed Solutions2019
AdviceDevelop targets to stimulate actions and against which progress can be measured.Arctic Biodiversity Congress 2014, Co-Chairs Report2014
Resilience and Management of Arctic Wetlands (RAW)Advice1Documenting Indigenous Resource Use: Improving documentation of Indigenous resource use may allow management authorities to make decisions that respect and accommodate Indigenous resource use by ensuring that subsistence activities are not unnecessarily impeded by management actionsArctic Wetlands and Indigenous Peoples Study: An assessment of Indigenous engagement in wetland protected areas2021
Arctic TEEBAdvice2

A number of additional options, some of which address fundamental issues and challenges to the application of the TEEB approach in the Arctic context. 1. Guidance, methods, tools and information to support policy

1.1. Raise awareness of the roles and value of ecosystem services among Arctic communities with the aim of empowering communities, grass roots organizations and local administrations for better discussions/negotiations with sub-national/federal governments and corporations on policy related to Arctic development.

1.2. Through collaborative processes, raise awareness of the ways that Arctic Indigenous Peoples value nature. For example, facilitate discussions between Indigenous Peoples and economists, aimed at informing ways to accommodate indigenous values in economic policies and practices.

1.3. Make the role of natural capital and ecosystem services explicit in relation to adaptation and adaptive capacity. This is best done through bringing results from this scoping study into, and working in collaboration with, Arctic Council initiatives, for example, bya) considering adaptation options for policy makers that include the non-monetary and economic aspects of biodiversity, through the Adaptation Actions for a ChangingArctic (AACA); and b) creating resilience indicators that would encompass ecosystem processes (building on the human development indicators) through the Arctic Resilience Report.

1.4. Make visible (in economies) the wider value of Arctic biodiversity conservation and sustainable biodiversity use schemes, and identify financing opportunities for such schemes that are based on recognizing ecosystem services.

1.5. Apply economic analysis with the goal of a) accommodating the multiple value systems underpinning mixed and livelihood economies in the Arctic, such as reindeer herding and community economies based, or partly based, on subsistence hunting, fishing and gathering; b) capturing Arctic social and ecological resilience in economic information and valuation; and c) facilitating investment in the insurance value of Arctic natural capital.

2. Knowledge base.

2.1. Complete and maintain the Arctic Ecosystem Services Inventory. A draft ecosystem services inventory was prepared as part of the scoping study (see Ecosystem services section above). The inventory is a start on a structured and synthesized literature review of Arctic ecosystem services, the ecosystems they are derived from, their associated benefits, status, trends, threats, uncertainty, knowledge gaps, and what work has been done on valuation. To be a useful source of synthesized information, and a basis for further information tools, the inventory requires further work. The inventory could a) be a ready resource for information and overviews of available information on ecosystem services and what is known about them in relation to beneficiaries, threats, trends and valuation, both to raise awareness and to provide an entry point for policy-related assessment work; b) serve as a metadata center and service through CAFF’s Arctic Biodiversity Data Service; and c) provide input to research and monitoring plans and agendas, and potentially also to industry monitoring and research planning

2.2. Take steps to capture or present new research results in ways that make them useful to ecosystem-services-based policy development. This could be awareness raising through research meetings of the need to make this connection, increased expert networking, such as through a community of practice on ecosystem services, and/or through changes to funding mechanisms for research.

2.3. Clearly identify knowledge gaps (both at the broad underpinning and methodological scale, and for specific geographic scales) and develop mechanisms to bring them into discussion of research agendas.

2.4. Facilitate and coordinate monitoring of the social and economic importance of ecosystems (through the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program). 3. Synthesis, analysis and information products

3.1. Analyze linkages over scale, time and actors that affect when, where and to whom the costs and benefits of industrial development in the Arctic on biodiversity and ecosystems occur, considering also current and future use and spatial subsidies, to demonstrate the value and help frame the distributive impacts of decisions.

3.2. Prepare ecosystem services inventories with regular status reporting. Include interdisciplinary valuation of ecosystem services at the level of LMEs and national scales, but also initiate a regular review and assessment process at the pan-Arctic scale. Review and assessment would be in collaboration with existing Arctic Council processes, including the framework for assessment of biodiversity status and trends established through the CBMP.

3.3. Develop indicators to help describe the status of Arctic biodiversity and ecosystems. Include indicators that convey the proximity to potential thresholds or tipping points and attach confidence metrics to all indicators reflecting the level of knowledge and understanding. Development of such indicators needs to be done through co-production of knowledge based on a collaboration of Traditional Knowledge holders and scientists. (Indicator development is underway through the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program.)

3.4. Develop resilience indicators that make explicit the role of natural capital and ecosystem services in building of adaptive capacity. These would have similar use for policy making but be more encompassing of ecosystem processes than human development indicators.

3.5. Develop and test tools to evaluate Arctic ecosystem services in local and sub-national EBM, marine spatial planning, land-use planning and management, and in co-management schemes where they can directly contribute to co-producing knowledge and adaptive governance.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) for the Arctic: A Scoping Study Executive Summary2015
CBMP Freshwater Biodiversity MonitoringAdvice

Traditional Knowledge (TK)

  • Engage with Indigenous communities to work towards identifying and integrating their TK into efforts to assess Arctic freshwater biodiversity, including change over time.
  • Incorporate TK as an integral part of circumpolar monitoring and observational networks.
State of the Arctic Freshwater Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring2016
CBMP Marine Biodiversity MonitoringAdvicePlankton• Follow standardized protocols for monitoring plankton, including sample collection and preservation, microscopic and genetic analyses with taxonomic harmonization.• Ensure that full data sharing occurs between scientists, and is deposited in publicly-accessible nationaldata centers. Continue to consolidate older data.• Train highly qualified personnel to perform plankton sampling and species-level analyses, including theuse of molecular techniques.• Establish long-term funded annual monitoring programmes of plankton from selected Arctic field stations or Arctic campaigns/cruises in Canada, the U.S. and Russia, which together with the ongoing monitoring in Greenland, Iceland and Norway will secure a pan-Arctic coverage. • Develop species indexes and if possible, identify indicator taxa for monitoring.State of the Arctic Marine Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring2017
CBMP Terrestrial Biodiversity MonitoringAdvice

Knowledge Gaps : Currently, there is some monitoring for all FECs, but it varies in coverage, duration, frequency and access to institutional support and resources.

  • Expand and coordinate long-term in situ time series across regions and across FECs.
  • Implement ecosystem-based approaches that better monitor and link biological attributes to environmental drivers.
  • Increase partnerships with Indigenous Knowledge holders and organizations.
  • Increase and support contributions from Local Knowledge holders and citizen science.
  • Work with Arctic Council Observer states to collect and compile knowledge on Arctic biodiversity.
  • Improve data collection on rare species and species of concern.
State of the Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring2021
Arctic Migratory Birds Initiative (AMBI)Advice7Monitoring species of high conservation concern – Leach’s storm-petrels should be monitored where possible for potential effects of plastic pollution.Plastic Pollution in Seabirds: Developing a program to monitor plastic pollution in seabirds in the pan-Arctic region2021
CBMP Terrestrial Biodiversity MonitoringAdvice

Arthropods : Arthropods are highly diverse and under-studied. They serve as important connections between trophic levels and several are important indicators of changing environments. The START reports on six FECs: pollinators, decomposers, herbivores, prey for vertebrates, blood-feeding insects, and predators and parasitoids. Only a few localized trends are provided due to high variability and lack of monitoring.

  • Implement long-term sampling programs at strategic sites with rigorous standardized trapping protocols.
  • Collect baseline data, including structured inventories, using standardized protocols for FECs and key attributes.
  • Work with Indigenous Knowledge holders, Local Knowledge holders, and/or citizen science to identify regionally important species to monitor, and key locations for long-term monitoring activities.
  • Focus monitoring efforts on taxa that: (a) are well-studied with existing data; (b) respond to, or are vulnerable to, change; and/or (c) have possible range shifts. • Monitor dominant habitats at a variety of sites at both small and large geographic scales.
  • Monitor relevant microhabitat environmental parameters, in addition to climatological variables, and connect to biological trends at relevant scale.
  • Focus on critical FEC attributes, including ecosystem processes such as pollination, decomposition, and herbivory.
  • Continue specimen sorting, identification and reporting and construct a complete trait database.
  • Complete molecular sequence libraries, increase international collaboration to collate, analyze, archive, and make data accessible.
State of the Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity: Key Findings and Advice for Monitoring2021
CBird: Seabird Expert GroupAdviceCollaboration Guidelines • Each country should prepare a national implementation plan for the strategy giving special attention to international collaboration. • Ensure the regional and local governments participate in developing a National Implementation Plan • Enlist the participation of local residents and technical specialists at an early stage in deciding how to implement the Strategy.International Ivory Gull Conservation Strategy and Action Plan2008
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