Nancy C. Doubleday

Adaptive co‐management for social–ecological complexity

Building trust through collaboration, institutional development, and social learning enhances efforts to foster ecosystem management and resolve multi-scale society–environment dilemmas. One emerging approach aimed at addressing these dilemmas is adaptive co-management. This method draws explicit attention to the learning (experiential and experimental) and collaboration (vertical and horizontal) functions necessary to improve our understanding of, and ability to respond to, complex social–ecological systems. Here, we identify and outline the core features of adaptive co-management, which include innovative institutional arrangements and incentives across spatiotemporal scales and levels, learning through complexity and change, monitoring and assessment of interventions, the role of power, and opportunities to link science with policy.

Paleoenvironmental studies of black carbon deposition in the High Arctic : a case study from Northern Ellesmere Island

Abstract The application of palcolimnological techniques to studies of anthropogenic black carbon particles in Lower Dumbell Lake, Northern Ellesmere Island, Northwest Territories, Canada, reveals a stratigraphic record of particle deposition over time. Comparison of the anthropogenic black carbon record with the paleoecological record of diatom assemblages in this lake indicates that the diatom flora developed within the period of anthropogenic black carbon particle deposition. This result supports an inference of very recent environmental change.

Aldo Leopold's land health from a resilience point of view: self-renewal capacity of social-ecological systems.

Health approaches to ecology have a strong basis in Aldo Leopold’s thinking, and contemporary ecohealth in turn has a strong philosophical basis in Leopold. To commemorate the 125th anniversary of Leopold’s birth (1887–1948), we revisit his ideas, specifically the notions of stewardship (land ethic), productive use of ecosystems (land), and ecosystem renewal. We focus on Leopold’s perspective on the self-renewal capacity of the land, as understood in terms of integrity and land health, from the contemporary perspective of resilience theory and ecological theory more generally. Using a broad range of literature, we explore insights and implications of Leopold’s work for today’s human–environment relationships (integrated social–ecological systems), concerns for biodiversity, the development of agency with respect to stewardship, and key challenges of his time and of ours. Leopold’s seminal concept of land health can be seen as a triangulation of productive use, self-renewal, and stewardship, and it can be reinterpreted through the resilience lens as the health of social–ecological systems. In contemporary language, this involves the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and the ability to exercise agency both for conservation and for environmental justice.

“Commons” concerns in search of uncommon solutions: Arctic contaminants, catalyst of change?

The Arctic Ocean is of increasing interest internationally, as a transportation route, as a resource pool, and as a hotbed of social and governmental change driven by indigenous claims. Unfortunately it is also receiving significant attention internationally because of its role as a possible sink for global transport of contaminants produced by industry and used in a wide range of agricultural and industrial applications. Regional concerns about contamination include identification of sources of production within and beyond the Arctic Region, transport and deposition of a wide range of contaminants by the atmospheric, oceanic and riverine delivery systems, and the expression of ecological effects. Transcending all of these scientific aspects of this issue are the strongly held concerns at the local level where what is at stake is the future of a sustainable way of life with ancient roots based on harvesting of renewable resources. The North Atlantic Region has already seen the consequences of many of the development pressures which will be brought to bear on the Arctic, such as off-shore oil production. Increased understanding of environmental as well as economic consequences of irreversible development choices is bound to be beneficial to the decision-making process. Finally as the Arctic contaminants issue has shown, the framework used for making development choices everywhere must be broadened to consider the long term global consequences of those decisions.

Arctic worlds and the geography of imagination

The intent of this paper is to contribute to a larger discussion of the history of geographical thought and its consequences by gently drawing attention to the Arctic as a place where alternative visions of nature, home and horizon persist; by contrasting many of our unchallenged geographical assumptions with what might be the logical consequence had we started in a different place, under different conditions and with a different perspective. It is never easy to comprehend the perspective of another and it is unwise to presume that one has indeed done so. For this reason, while this paper explores the dichotomy between the geographic perspectives of the Arctic, particularly those of the Inuit who know it best, and those of the Western Europeans who have literally laid claim to the Arctic geography, it does not purport to be anthropological or ethnographical. Rather it is an attempt to sketch the intellectual landscapes implicit in the contrast between Inuit and European approaches to the Arctic.

Arctic community engagement during the 2007–2008 International Polar Year

The 2007 2008 International Polar Year (IPY) directed a surge of resources to internationally coordinated, interdisciplinary research activities in both the Arctic and Antarctic. The fundamental concept of the IPY emphasized scientific research and observation at the Earth’s poles, but was underlined with the call to engage with Northerners, whether through collaborations, training, or simply in expanding communication and transparency toward northern Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Accordingly, the ‘human face’ of the IPY consisted not only of research on human health and socio-cultural issues; it also entailed education, outreach, and partnership activities with Arctic communities. When, for instance, the 44 Canadian IPY projects were approved for funding in March 2006, many researchers and Northerners had to respond to these challenges. Initiatives with and within communities were to take shape in many ways: school programs, material, and curriculum would be developed; accessible and innovative methods for sharing data and research outcomes would emerge; community researchers would enable locally derived understanding and documentation of social and ecological processes; and research training and capacity building among Northerners would be fostered. The promise of the IPY was thus for the research relationships built among natural scientists, social scientists, scholars in the humanities, and Arctic communities to prompt more complete understanding of Arctic change at diverse scales, increased awareness of the complementary aspects of local traditional knowledge and science, and improved methods for communicating Polar region research in communities and to the general public. This special issue of Polar Geography brings together a series of papers by an interdisciplinary group of authors which focus on Arctic community engagement during the IPY. For our purposes, community engagement is conceptualized broadly to include the diverse education, outreach, and communication activities of IPY science and social science in Arctic communities, but also the participatory, collaborative, and leadership roles assumed by Arctic residents or community