Suchergebnisse

Climate change incurs costs, but government adaptation budgets are limited. Beyond a certain point, individuals must bear the costs or adapt to new circumstances, creating political-economic tipping points that we explore in three examples. First, many Alaska Native villages are threatened by erosion, but relocation is expensive. To date, critically threatened villages have not yet been relocated, suggesting that we may already have reached a political-economic tipping point. Second, forest fires shape landscape and ecological characteristics in interior Alaska. Climate-driven changes in fire regime require increased fire-fighting resources to maintain current patterns of vegetation and land use, but these resources appear to be less and less available, indicating an approaching tipping point. Third, rapid sea level rise, for example from accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet, will create a choice between protection and abandonment for coastal regions throughout the world, a potential global tipping point comparable to those now faced by Arctic communities. The examples illustrate the basic idea that if costs of response increase more quickly than available resources, then society has fewer and fewer options as time passes.

AbstractDespite the rapid and accelerating rate of global environmental changes, too often research that has the potential to inform more sustainable futures remains disconnected from the context in which it could be used. Though transdisciplinary approaches (TDA) are known to overcome this disconnect, institutional barriers frequently prevent their deployment. Here we use insights from a qualitative comparative analysis of five case studies to develop a process for helping researchers and funders conceptualize and implement socially engaged research within existing institutional structures. The process we propose is meant to help researchers achieve societal as well as scientific outcomes relatively early in a project, as an end in itself or en route to greater engagement later. If projects that have a strong foundation of dialog and shared power wish to use TDA within current institutional and academic structures, we suggest that they focus on three process-based factors to increase their chances for success: (1) the maturity of relationships within a collaboration, (2) the level of context knowledge present within the collaborative team, and (3) the intensity of the engagement efforts within the project.

Successful wildlife management depends upon coordination and consultation with local communities. However, much of the research used to inform management is often derived solely from data collected directly from wildlife. Indigenous people living in the Arctic have a close connection to their environment, which provides unique opportunities to observe their environment and the ecology of Arctic species. Further, most northern Arctic communities occur within the range of polar bears (nanuq, Ursus maritimus) and have experienced significant climatic changes. Here, we used semi-structured interviews from 2017 to 2019 to document Iñupiaq knowledge of polar bears observed over four decades in four Alaskan communities in the range of the Southern Beaufort Sea polar bear subpopulation: Wainwright, Utqiaġvik, Nuiqsut, and Kaktovik. All but one of 47 participants described directional and notable changes in sea ice, including earlier ice breakup, later ice return, thinner ice, and less multiyear pack ice. These changes corresponded with observations of bears spending more time on land during the late summer and early fall in recent decades—observations consistent with scientific and Indigenous knowledge studies in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Participants noted that polar bear and seal body condition and local abundance either varied geographically or exhibited no patterns. However, participants described a recent phenomenon of bears being exhausted and lethargic when arriving on shore in the summer and fall after extensive swims from the pack ice. Further, several participants suggested that maternal denning is occurring more often on land than sea ice. Participants indicated that village and regional governments are increasingly challenged to obtain resources needed to keep their communities safe as polar bears spend more time on land, an issue that is likely to be exacerbated both in this region and elsewhere as sea ice loss continues. ; La gestion réussie de la faune dépend des efforts de coordination et de ...