Events

As an activity for the Swedish chairmanship of the Arctic Council, SEI and SRC are organizing a scoping workshop for an Arctic resilience assessment to be carried out in the next few years. It will start with an Open Session Monday 26 September, from 14.00 to 18.00, at the Royal Academy of Sciences. If you are interested in participating, please send an e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it before Sept 20.

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

Background
The Arctic region is currently in a period of rapid change – environmentally, politically and economically. At the Arctic Council Ministerial meeting in Nuuk in May this year, it was decided that a scoping exercise should be arranged during the fall of 2011 to review the need of an integrated assessment of multiple drivers of Arctic change, including an Arctic Resilience Report (ARR). The ARR is a Swedish Arctic Council chairmanship priority.

The ARR will be carried out by Stockholm Resilience Center (SRC)/Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in collaboration with the Resilience Alliance. The aim is to prepare decisions makers for managing the Arctic’s social-ecological systems in a period of rapid change with large uncertainties by undertaking an assessment of the resilience of Arctic social-ecological systems including the need for necessary transformational change. More information about the project is available here.

As part of the scoping activities for the ARR, Sweden is organizing a small expert workshop in Stockholm 26-28 September 2011. The workshop will start at 14.00 on Monday 26 September with an open session where the main ideas behind analyzing Arctic resilience will be presented. This will be followed by discussions on links to other Arctic Council priorities and Arctic research activities.

Program

13.30	Registration starts
14.00	- Welcome by Ambassador Gustaf Lind, SAO chair - Welcome by Johan Rockström, Executive Director Stockholm Resilience Center and Stockholm Environment Institute - Welcome by local host Björn Dahlbäck, Swedish Polar Research Secretariat
14.15	Arctic Resilience Report – Background and purpose of workshop. Annika E Nilsson, Stockholm Environment Institute
14.25	What is resilience? What is a resilience assessment? Presentation and interactive discussion led by Brian Walker, Stockholm Resilience Center
15.55	Coffee break
16.15	(Session chair: Johan Kuylenstierna, Deputy Director, Stockholm Environment Institute) Connections with other Arctic Council activities. Panel remarks by representatives of Arctic Council working groups and discussion
16.50	Connections with other international activities. Panel remarks and discussion
17.30	Concluding discussion
18.00	End of session