Download Polar regions - AAAS Atlas of Population and Environment

P O P U L AT I O N A N D E C O SY S T E M S
Po l a r re g i o n s
HE WORLD’S POLAR REGIONS are its least populated areas.
But while Antarctica has no permanent residents, the Arctic
has more than 3.7 million inhabitants from eight countries.
The prime environmental influences come from outside,
whether long-distance tourism or long-distance pollution.
But these same influences are also crucibles for new forms of
international cooperation.
T
The Arctic region – defined as the ice-covered Arctic Ocean and surrounding tundra – has a rich history of semi-nomadic communities living off its meagre resources of fish, marine mammals, caribou,
berries and mushrooms. These communities live largely in harmony with their environment, creating little pollution and managing their resources sustainably.
Indigenous communities are now outnumbered by migrants from the south in most parts of the
region except Greenland and Nunavut (though the Russian migrant population in Siberia is declining).
Nonetheless, they remain vibrant societies and are gaining self-governance, culminating in 1999
with the creation of the world’s newest autonomous territory, Nunavut in northern Canada1.
The Arctic’s specialized ecosystems and animals, adapted to the cold and dark, are particularly
vulnerable to the accumulation of toxic contaminants such as heavy metal, hydrocarbons and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides, that
accumulate in body fat. Some pollutants have local sources: PCBs leaking from old Canadian military equipment and Siberian oil pipelines and metal refineries, for instance. But levels of most POPs
can only be explained by long-range movement from lower latitudes. They reach the region via
rivers flowing north into the Arctic, particularly from Siberia; via sea ice transporting contaminants
from the coast; via global ocean currents; and by the strong south to north air flows, particularly
from Europe.
The cold Arctic air is believed responsible for “capturing” and then depositing passing air
pollution, including POPs and mercury, through a process known as “global distillation”. The long
marine food webs are extremely efficient at increasing the concentrations of such toxins so that
birds and animals at the top of the chain receive large doses. Heavy metals such as cadmium and
mercury, and POPs such as PCBs, all bioaccumulate in this way. The build-up is made more acute
because many of the toxins accumulate in fats, the main food of many polar animals. As a result,
studies suggest, polar bears are dying after imbibing PCBs in their mothers’ milk 2.
The local people, at the top of the food chain, are among the most heavily exposed populations in
the world to such pollutants, which reach dangerous concentrations in the flesh of whales, seals
and other mammals. Approaching 17 percent of Greenlanders have potentially harmful levels of
mercury in their blood, mostly from eating whale and seal meat. A typical traditional meal of these
foods may sometimes exceed maximum daily allowed doses of mercury, PCBs and other toxins.
Thus the contaminants directly threaten customary ways of life and cultural traditions.
Arctic ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to contamination, taking a long time to recover.
Polar regions
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P O P U L AT I O N A N D E C O SY S T E M S
TOURISM IN THE
A R C T I C , E A R LY
1990s
Arctic
region
Polar regions
THE ARCTIC
Number of
tourists per year
Alaska
25 000
Greenland
6 000
Iceland
129 000
Northern Scandinavia 500 000
Northwest Territories* 48 000
Russia
Some tens
of thousands
Svalbard
35 000
Yukon*
177 000
*Canada
Greenland
Source: UNEP.
P O P U L AT I O N S
OF THE ARCTIC,
1989-94
Arctic
region
Total
population
Alaska
481 054
Canada
92 985
Faroe Islands 43 700
Finland
200 677
Greenland
55 419
Iceland
266 783
Norway
379 461
Russia
1 999 711
Sweden
263 735
Canada
Russia
% indigenous
Alaska
15.2
50.9
0.0
2.0
86.7
0.0
9.9
3.4
2.3
Source: AMAP.
Source: AMAP; UNEP/GRID-Arendal.
THE TEN TOP
F I S H I N G N AT I O N S
IN THE ARCTIC
REGION*, 1997
Arctic boundary (AMAP)
Intermittent permafrost
Marine catch**
Metric tons
Norway
Iceland
Denmark
USA
UK
Russia
Canada
Spain
France
Netherlands
Other
Total
2 855 091
2 204 553
1 825 159
1 191 556
905 448
828 828
681 686
637 382
554 560
443 009
2 116 612
14 243 884
* Includes Northeast and Northwest
Atlantic
** Includes marine fish, molluscs
and crustaceans
Source: FAO.
Oil/gas extraction
Gas
Oil
Oil and gas
Exploration
Permafrost
Icesheet
PROTECTED AREAS IN THE ARCTIC, 1997
Arctic
region
Canada
Finland
Greenland
Iceland
Norway
Russia
Sweden
USA
Number of
protected areas
Square
kilometers
% of region
protected
48
52
14
26
38
31
44
41
462 674
25 905
993 023
12 165
41 637
313 818
20 348
331 425
8.8
32.6
45.7
11.8
25.5
4.9
21.4
56.1
Source: UNEP.
P O P U L AT I O N A N D E C O SY S T E M S
T H E A N TA R C T I C
Polar regions
A N TA R C T I C F I S H
C AT C H B Y
COUNTRY, 1997
South Atlantic
Ocean
Marine fish
Krill
Metric tons
Indian
Ocean
Australia
Chile
France
Japan
Korea, Rep.
Poland
South Africa
Spain
UK
Ukraine
Total
Tierra
del
Fuego
1 088
2 079
3 680
335
459
0
2 106
294
408
1 007
11 456
0
0
0
60 898
0
19 156
0
0
308
4 246
84 608
Source: FAO.
TOURISM IN THE
A N TA R C T I C
Southern
Ocean
South Pacific
Ocean
Summer
season
Number of
tourists
1992/93
1993/94
1994/95
1995/96
1996/97
1997/98
1998/99
6 565
8 016
8 120
9 367
7 413
9 604
10 383
Source: IAATO.
Source: NSIDC; NOAA; SCAR.
Scientific research stations
Ice shelf
Antarctic circle
Zooplankton concentrations
Low
Minimum/maximum ice extent
CLAIMS TO
SOVEREIGNTY
High
PA R T I E S T O T H E A N TA R C T I C T R E AT Y , 2 0 0 0
Argentina*5
Australia*3
Austria
Belgium
Brazil*1
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile*4
China*2
Colombia
Cuba
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Finland
France*1
Germany*1
Greece
Guatemala
Hungary
India*1
Italy
Japan*1
Korea, DPR
Korea, Rep.*1
Netherlands
New Zealand*1
Norway
Papua New Guinea
Peru
Poland*1
Romania
Russia*6
* Countries with research stations and number of stations in 1999
Slovakia
South Africa*1
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Ukraine*1
United Kingdom*2
United States of
America*3
Uruguay*1
Source: UNEP.
Argentina, Australia, Chile,
France, New Zealand, Norway
and the United Kingdom – the
seven countries that assert
sovereignty over the continent –
have all frozen their claims
under the Antarctic Treaty. The
treaty incorporates the 1972
Convention for the Conservation
of Antarctic Seals, the 1980
Convention for the Conservation
of Antarctic Marine Living
Resources, and the 1991
Protocol on Environmental
Protection, which specifically
prohibits the exploitation of
the region for minerals.
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158
P O P U L AT I O N A N D E C O SY S T E M S
Polar regions
T H E PAT H W AY S O F P E R S I S T E N T
O R G A N I C P O L L U TA N T S T O T H E A R C T I C
Oil, for instance, breaks down only very slowly in the cold and dark.
The oil spill from the Exxon Valdez in Alaskan waters in 1989 left
36 000 seabirds and 3 000 sea otters dead and a legacy that lasted far
longer than it would have in warmer regions.
Arctic ecosystems have also accumulated radioactive isotopes
spread through the atmosphere following the atmospheric testing in
the 1950s, and the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine in 1986.
While levels of fallout in the Arctic were no higher than elsewhere,
Arctic lichens absorbed large amounts of caesium-137. The lichen is
the staple diet of animals such as reindeer, which are eaten by
humans. As a result, Arctic inhabitants typically have five times as
much of the isotope in their bodies as people to the south, and some
reindeer herders have levels 300 times higher. Herders of northern
Scandinavia have been prevented from eating and selling reindeer
meat because of the fallout from Chernobyl.
Landuse threats to Arctic ecosystems have historically been
small, but they do exist. Norwegian reindeer herds have increased
threefold since 1950, exhausting lichen cover over an area of several
hundred thousand square kilometers. Overgrazing has contributed
to severe erosion of the loose volcanic soils in Iceland, and commercial forestry has fragmented the Siberian boreal forests3.
The Arctic was an important theatre of the Cold War, providing
HCH: Hexachlorocyclohexane, particularly in the
Source: UNEP.
form of the pesticide lindane
remote sites for military installations and weapons tests, and hiding
submarines beneath the sea ice. In the future, its economic role is
likely to grow. Long-standing metal smelting in Siberia and coal mining in the far-north island of
Svalbard are being joined by oil exploitation in Alaska and the Barents Sea, and plans to reopen the
old shipping route north of Norway and Russia. Since the end of the Cold War, the eight Arctic
nations have come together to discuss their shared environment. Besides creating nature reserves
in the region, they have taken the lead in pushing through a protocol to an existing United Nations
convention, curbing 16 POPs in Europe and North America, and have spurred negotiations for a
global treaty.
Many of the human-induced environmental threats in the Arctic do not occur in the largely
unpopulated Antarctic, where economic activity has declined since the great sealing and whaling
expeditions of the 19th century. The main pursuit is now science. The continent has 35 permanently
occupied bases, with the oldest, the Argentinean Orcadas base, having been continuously inhabited
since 1904. The fastest growing activity is tourism, which now brings some 15 000 people there
annually, mostly by cruise ship.
A certain amount of economic activity is also concentrated on fisheries, and there is concern
about large-scale overfishing, particularly of the Patagonian toothfish, which makes up by far the
largest share of the finfish catch in the region. In contrast to the rich marine life in the nutrientfilled waters of the Southern Ocean, the largely ice-covered continent has few land species.
Beyond the immediate threat of human activity, the polar regions are falling prey to global
threats: notably climate change and the thinning of the ozone layer. The Arctic has lost around
5 percent of its sea ice in the past two decades4, and land ice could follow. Recent modelling
studies suggest that a warming of 3oC would be sufficient to melt the entire Greenland ice sheet,
raising sea levels worldwide by 7 meters over a thousand years or more5.
Warming is already threatening the survival of polar bears around Hudson Bay, because the
sea ice from which they hunt is disappearing. And the additional ultra-violet radiation streaming
through the Antarctic ozone hole each southern spring is believed to be killing large numbers of
fish eggs and larvae floating on the surface of the Southern Ocean by damaging their DNA. It also
kills an estimated 15 percent of the phytoplankton in parts of the ocean6.