The Arctic Resilience Forum 2020 was hosted by the Icelandic Chairmanship of the Arctic Council and co-organized by the Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group and the Arctic Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. It is the second forum organized since the Council’s Arctic Resilience Action Framework (ARAF) was endorsed at the 10th Arctic Council Ministerial meeting in Fairbanks, USA in May 2017.
Each session touches on a specific aspect of Arctic resilience, ranging from food security and Indigenous youth leadership, to gender, energy and connectivity. The forum seeks to actively engage participants in conversations about how to build resilience of Arctic communities and ecosystems. It offers the opportunity to discuss concrete best practices and experiences from the Council and the broader community of circumpolar experts and knowledge holders. The Arctic Resilience Forum aims to continue to strengthen cooperation on resilience work. [source: Arctic Council]
The IACN participated in the organization of the following sessions:
The Arctic Resilience Forum: Renewable Energy
The Arctic Resilience Forum: Renewable Energy
Oct. 21, 2020
Description:
Indigenous and local communities, researchers, policy makers, and decision makers may approach energy through different lenses, but agree that clean and secure energy futures are essential for the resilience of Arctic communities. Governments make it a national priority, and it has implications across borders. At individual and community levels, energy needs and decisions are weighed against other priorities, equally important, and often as equally constrained. Energy is one of the priorities of the Icelandic Chairmanship of the Arctic Council (2019-2021) and focus areas of the Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG) and Arctic Contaminants Action Program (ACAP). Work is ongoing to promote the responsible and sustainable management, use, and development of energy and resources, as well as innovative approaches encouraging renewable energy in even the most remote Arctic communities. Energy challenges and opportunities are present at every scale and intrinsically tied to other issues such as housing; economies; health and wellness; climate; food; and sovereignty. Energy can be constraint to growth, or a means to achieve a greater vision. As our changing climate, increasing costs, and health necessitate a transition away from diesel dependence, what does that look like? What tools are available, and what enabling factors are necessary, to support that transition? What is the role of policy in advancing innovative energy projects and outcomes? And how are Indigenous communities, for whom the Arctic is their homelands, leading the way? This session will consider those questions, and highlight how energy is being transformative across the Arctic.
Speakers
- Dana Tizya-Tramm, Chief, Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation
- Yury Vasiliev, Executive Director, Institute of Arctic Technologies, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
- Oskar Njaa, General Manager for International Affairs, The Bellona Foundation
- Guðmundur Haukur Sigurðarson, General Manager of Vistorka
- Berit Kristoffersen, Associate Professor, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Arctic Centre for Sustainable Energy
- Kristín Linda Árnadóttir, Chair of the Arctic Council’s Expert Group on Black Carbon and Methane
- Jennifer Spence, Executive Secretary, Sustainable Development Working Group
Organizers: 
Recording:
To watch the full session recording visit the SDWG YouTube page.
Arctic Resilience Forum: Human Health and Pandemics
Arctic Resilience Forum: Human Health and Pandemics
Oct. 28, 2020
Description:
The Covid-19 pandemic has been a stress-test for resilience across the Arctic, particularly for the health and wellbeing of Northerners. The results of this test have been uneven – for example the Arctic’s remoteness has been a benefit in some areas, but it has hindered readiness and response in others. Around the region we’ve heard stories of both resilience and vulnerability, but throughout it all the unique strengths of the North show through.This session will focus on what we’ve learned so far and how resilience can best be supported going forward. We will explore how the pandemic has demonstrated the strength and resilience of some communities, discuss some of the ways that Indigenous and western knowledge systems have interacted in the face of crisis, and describe some longstanding vulnerabilities exposed by the pandemic. The session will feature videos-from-the-field, a panel of experts and knowledge holders, and Q&A from the audience.
Speakers
- Arja Rautio, MD, PhD, ERT (Eurotox), VP Research University of the Arctic, Professor in Arctic Research, Thule Institute and Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, Finland
- Christina Henriksen – The President of the Saami Council is from Girkonjárga/Kirkenes
- Dr. Gary Ferguson, Faculty and Director of Outreach & Engagement at Washington State University’s Institute for Research and Education to Advance Community Health (IREACH), Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine.
- Gert Mulvad MD, GP, PhD h.c.: Greenland Center for Health Research, Ilisimatusarfik, University of Greenland
- Grigory Ledkov: President, Russian Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the North;
- Dr. N. Stuart Harris, Founder and Chief of the Massachusetts General Hospital Division of Wilderness Medicine, and the Director of the MGH Wilderness Medicine Fellowship
- Andrey Petrov: Associate Professor of Geography, ARCTICenter Director and Academic Director of GeoTREE Center at the University of Northern Iowa
- Jennifer Spence: the Executive Secretary for the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group.
Organisers:
Recording:
To watch the full session recording visit the SDWG YouTube page.
Arctic Resilience Forum: Socio-Ecological Resilience
Arctic Resilience Forum: Socio-Ecological Resilience
Nov. 25, 2020
Description:
This session describes the important role of wetlands ecosystems in supporting Arctic resilience. The session is organized around three important goals. The first is to highlight the important role of Arctic wetlands and their importance to Arctic peoples and to people at a global scale due to their enormous carbon storage and subsequent impact on climate change. A second goal is to demonstrate how a social-ecological systems perspective sheds light on actions needed to protect people via stewardship of nature. The third, pressing and practical goal of the session is to road test action/policy recommendations being jointly developed by the Conservation of Flora and Fauna Working Group and the Belmont Forum AWERRS project for the 2021 Arctic Council Ministerial. Given the precarious status of Arctic wetlands social-ecological systems, this session seeks insights on three key questions: 1) What actions can be taken to accelerate and strengthen wetlands restoration efforts across the Arctic? 2) How can questions of responsible land-use to prevent future damage and degradation (including examples of stewardship and sustainable use) be more effectively addressed, and 3) what steps can be taken to support and strengthen community engagement and co-management approaches to Arctic wetlands stewardship, particularly indigenous co-management?
Speakers
- Dr. Marcus Carson, Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Institute and Senior Advisor for the Swedish International Center for Local Democracy
- Dr. Tatiana Minayeva, Care for Ecosystems UG cooperating with the Centre for the conservation and restoration of wetland ecosystems IFS RAS (Moscow, Russia), Yugra State University (Khanty-Mansyjsk, Russia) and Wetlands International (The Netherlands)
- Dr. Hlynur Oskarsson , landscape ecologist at the Agricultural University of Iceland.
- Victoria Bushman, Iñupiaq (Inuk) conservation biologist
- Dr. Stanislav Ksenofontov is a human geographer and indigenous activist from the Sakha Republic (Yakutia)
Organisers:
Recording:
To watch the full session recording visit the SDWG YouTube page.