Climate change – coupled with globalization – has triggered a cascade of events leading to profound environmental and socioeconomic changes in the Arctic both on land and sea. If anything, this cascade is accelerating. One result is a growing demand for innovation regarding conservation, management and governance of Arctic resources, in light of new scientific findings and the warnings they inspire. This, in turn, has generated an outpouring of new ways of thinking about governance in the Arctic — resulting in a range of concrete proposals and policy alternatives for sustaining arctic communities, ecosystems and biodiversity.

Governance in a Rapidly Changing  Arctic is a project that seeks to capture the best of these ongoing efforts and activities. The project will draw on the insights arising from traditional ecological knowledge as well as western scientific knowledge. It will pay particular attention to opportunities for strengthening existing mechanisms like the Arctic Council, but be open to arguments call! ing for supplementing or even replacing these arrangements to achieve success in meeting the emerging demand for governance in the Arctic. 

Key Project Components:
- A comprehensive and electronically accessible compendium
- An Arctic Governance Workshop
- A comprehensive communication strategy
 
For further information, please click here though it should be noted that this is a pilot version that is under rapid development.

Contact information:
Chair of the project: Professor Oran Young, oran.young@gmail.com
Bren School of Environmental Science and Management
University of California, Santa Barbara, US
 
Executive Secretary: Else Grete Broderstad, else.g.broderstad@uit.no
Centre for Sami Studies, University of Tromsø, Norway