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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Northern Research Forum
inaccessible that no legal agreements regarding territorial rights seemed to be necessary. In a
warming world this situation is fastly changing, and a number of potentially dangerous territorial
conflicts are becoming more likely. Improved legal frameworks are needed regarding fishing rights,
the territorial rights of indigenous peoples in the North, future Arctic transport routes, and the
distribution of licences for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic. Law specialists are cooperating here
with geologists, biologists, community leaders, energy companies, and governments in order to
develop legal frameworks supporting a geopolitically and environmentally safe Arctic region for all
the involved interest groups.
Very detailed sociological surveys have been prepared looking at the state of public knowledge about
climate change, for example among young people in Iceland. First pilot studies have revealed a
significant gap between the current state of scientific climate change research and public awareness
and knowledge about the causes and effects of climate change, pointing towards a serious
communication problem between institutions of science and education. Measures to improve public
knowledge about climate change are necessary on a variety of scales ranging from an adjustment of
education policies to specialist teacher training and governmental information campaigns.
Current research has pointed out a variety of climate change effects upon human health, including
the psychological as well as physical impacts of a changing environment. While it can be difficult to
separate climate change effects from other negative effects on human health, such as socioeconomic
factors, their close correlation highlights the necessity to look at environmental and socioeconomic
conditions in combination, and not separately. Mitigating measures likewise must consider the
socioeconomic reality of people in their communities at the same time as the irreversibly changing
environmental conditions they live in. The results of climate change related Health research should
influence policy making for short- and long-term responses and oblige decision-makers to be more
aware of the complexity of indirect health issues arising from adaptation measures such as
depression as the consequence of the resettlement of climate change migrants.
International reporting of climate change has increased attention onto tourism in the Arctic regions.
Climate change is expected to improve access to previously isolated territories, which is mostly
positively viewed since tourism infrastructures could bring much needed income to these formerly
very remote communities. Nevertheless, the problematic impacts of larger-scale organized tourism
upon Arctic rural communities have also been thematized. The phenomenon of the "climate change
tourist" meanwhile is a controversial topic: It may be productive to provide opportunities to
experience the effects and places of climate change first-hand. On the other hand the desire to see
glaciers and polar bears "before they are gone" does not automatically lead to climate friendly
behaviour at home or civil action aiming to prevent those effects that are offered and consumed as a
"now or never more" spectacle.
Natural Resources
The exploitation of both living and non-living resources – from fish, reindeer, and seals, to water,
energy and forests – was comprehensively discussed during the assembly. Some axioms of natural
resource research e.g. ecological baselines, geographic specificities, discrete spheres etc. were