The CHARTER project is entering its final year and concluding publications are beginning to roll out. An important new one led by Sirpa Rasmus, supported by a large number of CHARTER affiliated researchers has just been published in the One Earth journal.
With the snappy title of ‘Policy documents considering biodiversity, land use, and climate in the European Arctic reveal visible, hidden, and imagined nexus approaches’, the authors write,
Governance in the Arctic works better if it looks at climate change, biodiversity, land use, and Indigenous and local communities not as separate entities but in combination. Such a holistic approach is facilitated by the concept of “nexus.” We show how this approach is applied in policy documents at pan-Arctic, cross-border regional, national, and subnational scales. We found that, depending on the scale, documents underestimate certain interactions of the nexus. We call for stronger emphasis on these links. Policy recommendations implying a nexus approach suggest various strategies: ecosystem approaches, technological solutions, authoritative regulations, co-production of knowledge, or adaptive co-management. Among these, we endorse co-management, considering Indigenous and local communities not simply as victims but as active drivers of change. Also, policymakers should be aware that biodiversity is not only “impacted” but plays a key role in shaping Arctic futures.
From the article introduction.
The Arctic is experiencing rapid and interlinked socio-environmental changes. Therefore, governance approaches that take the complex interactions between climate change, biodiversity loss, increasing land use pressures, and local livelihoods into account are needed: nexus approaches. However, an overview of whether and to what extent Arctic policies address these nexus elements in concert has been missing. The authors analyzed a large sample of publicly available assessment reports and policy documents from the terrestrial European Arctic. Read and download the full paper here.
