The CHARTER project (Drivers and Feedbacks of Changes in Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity) is holding its kick off meeting for all project participants on October 6th to October 8th. Given the ongoing travel restrictions and uncertainties as regards COVID-19 it has been decided that the meeting will be held virtually with the management team and leadership participating from Rovaniemi, Finland.
Like many scientific endeavours, a global pandemic has played havoc with our regular scheduling, research and fieldwork and the project start has been delayed by many months. However, much work has been done in the meantime. Fieldwork has been carried out in northern Europe, one work package participant spent lock down in the Yamal region and the management team has used the time to deepen and broaden the network, and build out the project outreach tools. Several post doctoral fellows have been hired, about whom we will be posting news here presently.
The project already has access to extraordinary array of satellite imagery, still photography and video footage from the around the Arctic which we will be showcasing through our website and social media channels. You can see our expanding video gallery here where Work Package leaders are interviewed, our Twitter channel here and our photo gallery here. See a map and table of all the project partner institutions and personnel here.
From hereon in we will be posting news on a regular basis, so be sure to follow us on our channels to keep updated on our progress. We are also happy to show off our project logo, which we hope encompasses something of the plants, animals and cyclical nature of the Arctic world. To reach our project team office, check out our contacts page.
The project leader is Research Professor Bruce Forbes, here pictured last summer during field work on the Yamal Peninsula, Russia. Bruce is Research Professor at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland.
CHARTER is an ambitious effort to advance the adaptive capacity of Arctic communities to climatic and biodiversity changes through state-of-the-art synthesis based on thorough data collection, analysis and modelling of Arctic change with major socio-economic implications and feedbacks. CHARTER involves 21 research institutions across 9 countries. The 4 year, 5.9M Euro project is managed by the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland, Finland and is funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovations Programme (Grant #869471).
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