Recommendations

CHALLENGE There is mistrust between Arctic Indigenous peoples and scientists, and scientists often lack adequate preparation for working cross-culturally.

POTENTIAL ACTIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES Increase opportunities for cross-cultural learning, understanding, and trust building.

CHALLENGE There is no consistent approach to working with Traditional Knowledge and Wisdom.

POTENTIAL ACTIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES Create best practices through demonstration projects and on-the-ground work, including an evaluation of past projects and analysis of what worked and what didn’t.

CHALLENGE Very complex and dynamic systems.

POTENTIAL ACTIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES Effective partnerships and/or a formalized system of sharing among Arctic Indigenous peoples and scientists would more effectively engage human intelligence to deal with issues, for example utilizing Traditional Knowledge and Wisdom as early warnings of environmental change

Citizen Science

• Engage local communities in monitoring activities through citizen science and incorporate local knowledge as an integral part of future circumpolar monitoring and observational networks.
• Interact with local communities to enhance outreach to the public (youth in particular) and develop common observational tools.
• Provide material for training and educational purposes for local residents at all age levels.

Collaboration and cooperation:

4. Prepare "National Implementation Plans",

5. Enlist the participation of regional and local governments,

6. Obtain assistance from local residents and eider specialists

Collaboration and cooperation:

5. Encourage and assist the development and implementation of national murre conservation plans.

6. Coordinate initiatives among circumpolar countries to address shared murre conservation issues.

7. Ensure the involvement of other jurisdictions and groups necessary to effectively implement this action plan.

Commercial activities and industries:

8. Identify, publicize and minimise impacts of commercial activities on murre breeding and foraging areas.

9. Implement programs to reduce oil pollution in areas used by murres.

10. Assess and reduce mortality of murres in commercial fishing gear.

11. Ensure that management of commercial harvests of small fish species provide for their role in murre diets.

Commercial activities:

8. Identify eiders populations and habitats at risk from oil pollution,

9. Reduce eider mortality caused by commercial fisheries activities.

Communication and consultation:

14. Support other eider conservation initiatives,

15. Ensure coordination with other bird conservation plans,

16. Enlist support of local residents and others interested in eiders,

17. Solicit periodic evaluation of the Strategy by eider specialists,

18. Prepare periodic reports summarizing accomplishments in eider conservation,

19. Ensure that eider conservation projects include an educational component.

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.

Consumptive use:

1. Ensure that consumptive uses of murres are sustainable.
2. Monitor harvest levels and assess their impacts on populations.
3. Harmonize management and harvest regimes for shared populations.
4. Involve local and Indigenous people in the management of consumptive uses.

Continue to improve and make available information and data.

a. Review, evaluate, and update the CBMP and its monitoring plans, including the parameters and attributes, sampling methods, data management, and reporting in accordance with the CBMP Strategy. External review every 10 years, starting in 2020.

b. Continue implementation the CBMP and its ecosystem-based biodiversity monitoring plans.

c. Establish, develop and maintain the ABDS as the supporting framework to facilitate long-term data sharing and as a source of data for modelling and ecosystem-based management.

d. Develop and apply standards of the Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) and further develop use of remote sensing.

Contribute to the implementation and development of regional flyway initiatives:
7.1 Promote and support the implementation of regional strategies and flyway initiatives
7.2 Encourage/coordinate the development of an American Mid- continental Flyway strategy

Convene Arctic Biodiversity Congress.

a. Convene, and report the results of the first Arctic Biodiversity Congress, create dialogue on ABA key findings and recommendations, solicit review and input on draft ABA action plan, establish partnerships and advance implementation actions.

b. Convene, and report the results of, a second Arctic Biodiversity Congress to promote the conservation and sustainable use of Arctic biodiversity focusing on the results of the CBMP state of the Arctic biodiversity reports, progress on implementation of ABA recommendations, and attainment of Aichi Targets.

c. Convene a third congress.

Coordination: Better coordination allows for increased value for investment in monitoring programs, better opportunity to compare results, and more ability to draw meaningful conclusions from data:

• Strategically locate Arctic research stations and monitoring vessels, and use all collected specimens, to allow the collection and analysis of as many CBMP FECs as possible.
• Ensure research stations operate all year to better study FECs year round.
• Combine national monitoring with collaborative approaches that allow for sufficient integration and standardization to conduct syntheses across the circumpolar region.
• Standardize how data are collected, managed and made available. This is a key component in ensuring circumpolar Arctic comparability and should be an important consideration in the implementation of monitoring plans.
• Encourage states to increase the implementation of existing internationally coordinated monitoring plans.
• Connect monitoring initiatives and report across scales so that results are meaningful for local, sub-national, national, regional and global decision-makers.
• Continue to increase coordination between CBMP and other regional and global monitoring initiatives e.g., the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEOBON), International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service (IPBES).

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.

Determine climate change resilient areas of shorebird habitat and promote their protection

4.1 Carry out an analysis of the resilience of shorebird wintering habitat to climate change

4.2 Promote protection of climate change resilient shorebird breeding, wintering and migration habitats

Determine predation rates and the best mitigation measures to reduce the impact.

4.5.1. Investigate the magnitude and effect of predation at population level.

Develop and implement mechanisms that best safeguard Arctic biodiversity under changing environmental conditions, such as loss of sea ice, glaciers and permafrost.

a. Safeguard areas in the northern parts of the Arctic where high Arctic species have a relatively greater chance to survive for climatic or geographical reasons, such as certain islands and mountainous areas, which can act as a refuge for unique biodiversity.

7.1. Develop options for safeguarding potential marine and terrestrial refuge areas, including areas that will maintain multi-year ice (related to AMSA IID).

b. Maintain functional connectivity within and between protected areas in order to protect ecosystem resilience and facilitate adaptation to climate change.

7.2. Assess options and recommend most effective methods to manage connectivity, in light of climate change, including identification of sub-populations, species and regions for which connectivity is most critical (including for increasing genetic resilience).

7.3. Identify management actions that will enhance resilience of species in adapting to rapid change.

Develop and implement mechanisms that best safeguard Arctic biodiversity under changing environmental conditions, such as loss of sea ice, glaciers and permafrost.

a. Safeguard areas in the northern parts of the Arctic where high Arctic species have a relatively greater chance to survive for climatic or geographical reasons, such as certain islands and mountainous areas, which can act as a refuge for unique biodiversity.

b. Maintain functional connectivity within and between protected areas in order to protect ecosystem resilience and facilitate adaptation to climate change.