Leah Beveridge, Mélanie Fournier & Ronald Pelot
The Canadian-German project PASSAGES (Protection and Advanced Surveillance System for the Arctic: Green, Efficient, Secure)1aims to: (1) determine the needs of Canadian stakeholders for better maritime situational awareness; and (2) design a maritime monitoring system adapted to Arctic conditions. Although the system could be deployed in the circumpolar region as a whole, the geographical zone of interest is the Northwest Passage within the Canadian Arctic archipelago. In its first phase, PASSAGES has created a database by collecting and cross-referencing contextual information and interacting with potential users of such a system (government agencies, shipping companies, communities etc.). Exploring the Canadian stakeholder network is a necessary part of understanding how operations are planned for and conducted. The sources of this information, however, remain fragmented and difficult to locate.
The objective here is to take a new approach to sharing stakeholder information through a visualization tool. The goal is to go beyond traditional bibliographies and indexes to provide a comprehensive account of the major stakeholders in the Canadian Arctic, including an evaluation of their scale(s) of operation, their interests, and interactions.
