Resilience in focus for new Arctic initiative

Monday, 26 September 2011 08:43

Herd of reindeer in northern Norway. Credit: Peter Nijenhuis/Flickr

Experts will gather in Stockholm today to start to discuss the most urgent issues facing the Arctic.

The Arctic is changing rapidly and there is a need to know how different drivers of change interact with each other. Some changes may become so dramatic that the social and natural features of the Arctic will no longer be recognizable from what existed in the past.

This is the focus of a workshop 26-28 September in Stockholm organized by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC).  The workshop is the starting point of a resilience assessment focusing on the Arctic region. The assessment is part of the project Arctic Resilience Report is a priority for the Swedish chairmanship of the Arctic Council. It will also contribute to a larger Arctic Council endeavour to analyze Arctic change.

“The Stockholm workshop will serve to define both the most urgent issues to focus on but also to ensure that the Arctic Resilience Report can connect other activities addressing Arctic change both in research and the policy sphere” says researcher Annika E. Nilsson who is leading the project at SEI.

Understanding the changes that are occurring, their interactions and the potential for shocks and dramatic shifts is a first step. “Identifying the avenues for building resilience in the Arctic to adapt and transform will also be crucial” says Johan Rockström, Executive Director of SEI and SRC.

The Arctic Resilience Report project is led by Stockholm Environment Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre in collaboration with the Resilience Alliance.

The workshop has been supported by the Swedish chairmanship of the Arctic Council and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.


Read more about the event »

Workshop press release from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of the Environment »

Swedish Ministry of the Environment interview with Annika E. Nilsson (in Swedish) »