Arctic Summer College Yearbook: An Interdisciplinary Look into Arctic Sustainable Development

167 Pages·2018·2.8 MB·English

by  Brendan O’Donnell

Brendan O'Donnell · Max Gruenig
Arne Riedel Editors
Arctic Summer
College
Yearbook
An Interdisciplinary Look into Arctic
Sustainable Development
Arctic Summer College Yearbook
Brendan O’Donnell • Max Gruenig
Arne Riedel
Editors
Arctic Summer College
Yearbook
An Interdisciplinary Look into Arctic
Sustainable Development
Editors
Brendan O’Donnell Max Gruenig
Washington, DC, USA Washington, DC, USA
Arne Riedel
Berlin, Germany
ISBN 978-3-319-66458-3 ISBN 978-3-319-66459-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-66459-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017913738
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Preface
The Arctic is on the front line in international news, whether it is about evidence of
dramatic climate change, the future of the traditional fossil fuel energy sector, new
trade routes, resource frontier, or perceived potential geopolitical conflicts. And that
news is going way beyond the region and quickly becoming global.
For many, the Arctic is the last large region in the world (almost 40 million km2)
still with a relatively pristine environment and low-level ecosystem fragmentation.
At the same time, it is the region which, as forecasted by financial institutions, will
experience hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in the coming decades. It
is also a region of fruitful, stable, and strong cooperation between eight Arctic states
for many years, maintaining political stability within the current turbulent world. It
experiences warming at an alarming rate which is double the global average, and it
is happening today, as we read this book. All those features make the Arctic an area
of significant challenges, but also unique opportunities, for humanity. We can shape
the future of this region in a “right” – sustainable – way in advance of serious dam-
age. All other regions have already changed drastically and have been damaged by
human activities. In the Arctic, we can collectively, proactively design sustainability
and stewardship instead of mitigating numerous negative impacts like in many other
parts of the world.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our generation, for Arctic states, and
for the planet. We cannot afford to miss it.
The Arctic experiences well-known problems associated with the approaches of
resource exploitation, perhaps the most consequential among them being “short-
termism.” This is a key threat for both the present and the future Arctic, alongside
sectoral silos and associated static management approaches.
There is a great interest in the region’s future. In the last decade, the research
community invested much of its efforts into developing scenarios for the future (or
futures) of the Arctic (or Arctics), as in many ways we can speak about many Arctics
while its ecosystem remains one. However, those scenarios are predominantly
developed based on traditional and often fixed assumptions for “traditional” resource
development, following current global market trends with a primary desire to main-
tain the status quo.
v
vi Preface
If we want to have a sustainable future for the Arctic that includes healthy eco-
systems providing benefits for peoples of the Arctic and beyond, we need to switch
to a different scenario-based and long-term approach.
The Arctic states, Indigenous peoples of the Arctic, and various stakeholders
need to unite and develop a clear vision for the Arctic and must together answer the
following question: How do we want to see the Arctic in 2050 or even 2100?
Developing this vision should be the priority. Such a shared vision can become the
target for building further scenarios, and those scenarios should develop possible
and plausible paths for achieving the vision. Such a vision will be useful for gover-
nance systems, such as the Arctic Council, informing its own long-term strategy,
which this prominent regional policy-shaping forum recently agreed to work on.
The vision can inform future multiyear work for the Arctic Council and help it move
from a 2-year, ad hoc planning. The Arctic needs to be prepared for investments
which have returns over periods of decades rather than short-term “skim the cream
off” resource use. New paradigm shifting from resource exploitation to stewardship,
from low-hanging fruit to long-term investments, will benefit the future of the
region and its people, making the Arctic an attractive place to live, work, and create
community.
What do we need to get there? First, support Arctic states in their strong desire to
keep the Arctic as a territory of dialogue and cooperation involving several states
and, as such, to shield it from external geopolitical storms. Second, further develop
science and all types of knowledge systems, including Indigenous, to better under-
stand changes, find the ways for mitigation and adaptation, and bridge this knowl-
edge with management and policy-making processes. Third, invest heavily into new
Arctic-specific technologies and innovations incorporating the best environmental
and social standards. Fourth, prioritize Arctic people with high standards for health
and wellness, bringing them in line with the rest of the countries. And fifth, ensure
that all commitments and promises made by Arctic governments are implemented
on the ground and are translated from declarations and papers into an improved
state of the Arctic environment and living standards of Arctic people.
Nobody can do these things alone. For us to get there, we need expertise and
experience from across the Arctic and beyond. Ecologic Institute is one of those
organizations that bring together scholars and practitioners from around the world
to contribute to solutions and to design a stewardship future for the Arctic. Every
exchange in knowledge will further enrich discussions and stimulate actions to
shape the future for a still-cool Arctic.
Gland, Switzerland Alexander Shestakov
Contents
Imagining the Arctic ....................................................................................... 1
Supriti Jaya Ghosh
From Consultation to Consent: A Comparative Analysis
of Arctic States ................................................................................................ 9
Sarah-Grace Ross
The Arctic as a Region of Innovation ............................................................ 21
Heather Exner-Pirot
Inclusive and Lateral Environmental Governance: Exploring
Theoretical and Practical Capacity for Networked
Environmental Governance in the Russian Arctic ....................................... 33
Nadia French
Maritime Passages of the Future ................................................................... 45
Heather A. Conley and Matthew Melino
Arctic Council Scorecards – Monitoring Arctic Policy Transfer ................ 59
Arne Riedel
South Korea and the Arctic Region ............................................................... 73
Martin Kossa
The Arctic Digital Divide ................................................................................ 93
Andreas Kuersten
Arctic Freshwater – A Commons Requires Open Science .......................... 107
Sina Muster
Human Dimension for Effective Climate Action: Synergies
Between Traditional Ecological and Hydro Meteorological
Scientific Knowledge in the Arctic and Beyond ........................................... 121
Olga Krylova
vii
viii Contents
Contemporary Circumpolar Health Issues and Innovative
Responses in the Anthropocene ..................................................................... 131
Carol Devine
Local Initiatives to Reduce the Incidence of Sexual
Assault in the North ........................................................................................ 143
Mary F. Ehrlander
A Flourishing Arctic
There has been a resurgence of the word “flourishing” in international relations in
recent years. In contemporary political discourse, the term is often used to describe
the seeming convergence of regenerative economic, social, and environmental poli-
cies, particularly in emerging societies, that create a sense of sustainable progress,
of viability and vitality, and, most important, of integration into global systems of
governance, trade, and diplomacy. A flourishing society is able to efficiently adapt
to externalities and respond to gaps in policy, producing a dynamic system that
reinforces the traditional values of the community, as well as the commitment to its
future. Much like the word’s etymology, however, this definition can come across as
an embellishment, an apparition, and even an illusion used to distract from underly-
ing structural issues.
Is a Flourishing Arctic Possible?
Flourishing is also a familiar term for those who have studied Aristotelean ethics.
Eudaemonist, which has more recently been translated as “human flourishing,” phi-
losophy posits reason as the foundation for virtuous action, thus making the good
life objectively desirable. Applying these meanings of flourishing to the Arctic, it
would seem that rational thought and discourse, delimited through a process of
multilateral governance and intent on creating positive impacts for the diverse com-
munities personally, financially, and politically impacted by developments in the
region, would, in fact, lead to a collective flourishing in the region, a golden age of
enlightened development that celebrates the traditions and histories of the peoples
who call it home and establishes the Arctic as an integral, influential part of the
global community’s collective future.
ix
x A Flourishing Arctic
But This Remains Elusive. Why?
The Arctic region is home to millions of people, the vast majority of whom are geo-
graphically, socially, and economically isolated from the seats of power of their own
countries. The Canadian capital, Ottawa, for instance, is further from the northern
town of Iqaluit, capital of the Nunavut territory in the Canadian Arctic, than it is
from Orlando, Florida. Russia, home to nearly half of the 4 million Arctic inhabit-
ants, has an estimated total population of more than 144 million, meaning less than
1.4% of Russians live in the Arctic. The marginalization and isolation of Arctic
populations are often manifested in national policies that regard these areas either as
in need of protection, stifling the local economies and communities from full or
even partial participation in the world economy, or as unlimited opportunities for
commodities and resource extraction, denying the historical and human social reali-
ties of the Arctic. These are, of course, extreme variations, but they are points on a
continuum that for too long have defined the international discourse about the
Arctic. On the one hand, there is a definite paternalism that seeks to deny the agency
of the Arctic and its inhabitants and its ability and desire to adapt to a myriad of
complex contemporary challenges, among them the existential threat imposed by
global climate change. On the other hand, there is a quasi-colonialist agenda that
attempts to erase any characteristic of the Arctic that does not serve the motivations
and ambitions of a faraway authority. To date, the majority of international diplo-
macy has been an attempt to find an equilibrium between these two viewpoints.
However, neither viewpoint places the Arctic at the center of the debate, rendering
the process a negotiation among third parties at best. Until this changes, Arctic
policy will continue to be in flux, and the region will not be able to flourish.
Making Progress
Since 2011, the Arctic Summer College (ASC) has attempted to facilitate a reposi-
tioning of the Arctic region and its many peoples, whether Indigenous or migrant, at
the center of Arctic discourse. Academics around the globe, as well as policy experts
and commercial interests, have been doing this for decades, but the opportunity to
exchange and support each other’s work, not as anomalies or eccentricities but as
essential contributions to comprehensive international policy, was lacking. After
establishing a network of professionals producing some of the most forward-
thinking work on the Arctic, ASC decided to take the program to the next level by
encouraging aspiring students across disciplines to view their emerging areas of
expertise within the context of the Arctic, making the Arctic less a niche subject and
more a part of the complete academic and policy discourse. We united current pro-
fessionals with the next generation of practitioners through a mentorship program
that enabled both sides to learn from each other, allowing theory and practice to