Incorporating Resilience When Assessing Pandemic Risk in the Arctic: A Case Study of Alaska

The discourse on vulnerability to COVID-19 or any other pandemic is about the susceptibility to the effects of disease outbreaks. Over time, vulnerability has been assessed through various indices calculated using a confluence of societal factors. However, categorising Arctic communities, without considering their socioeconomic, cultural and demographic uniqueness, into the high and low continuum of vulnerability using universal indicators will undoubtedly result in the underestimation of the communities\u27 capacity to withstand and recover from pandemic exposure. By recognising vulnerability and resilience as two separate but interrelated dimensions, this study reviews the Arctic communities\u27 ability to cope with pandemic risks. In particular, we have developed a pandemic vulnerability-resilience framework for Alaska to examine the potential community-level risks of COVID-19 or future pandemics. Based on the combined assessment of the vulnerability and resilience indices, we found that not all highly vulnerable census areas and boroughs had experienced COVID-19 epidemiological outcomes with similar severity. The more resilient a census area or borough is, the lower the cumulative death per 100 000 and case fatality ratio in that area. The insight that pandemic risks are the result of the interaction between vulnerability and resilience could help public officials and concerned parties to accurately identify the populations and communities at most risk or with the greatest need, which, in turn, helps in the efficient allocation of resources and services before, during and after a pandemic. A resilience-vulnerability-focused approach described in this paper can be applied to assess the potential effect of COVID-19 and similar future health crises in remote regions or regions with large Indigenous populations in other parts of the world

Gender equality for a thriving, sustainable arctic

On 21 May 2021, a milestone Pan-Arctic Report: Gender Equality in the Arctic was published in tandem with the Arctic Council’s Ministerial Meeting held in Reykjavík, 19–20 May 2021. This article provides a brief review of the report and its major findings across six chapters that address key themes concerning gender equality in the Arctic: Law and Governance, Security, Gender and Environment, Migration and Mobility, Indigeneity, Gender, Violence, Reconciliation and Empowerment and Fate Control. A major conclusion of the report is that accessible, comparable, gender-disaggregated, and Arctic -specific data is severely lacking. Further, all chapters highlight the importance of gender-based analysis and gender mainstreaming in all decision-making processes at national and regional levels. The varying roles that gender—and its intersections with existing inequalities—plays in mediating the impacts of climate change and other socioeconomic transformations are also discussed throughout the report. The Arctic Council is identified as the main driver for implementing recommendations that were provided and discussed at the Council’s Ministerial Meeting and in the Reykjavík Declaration 2021, where the eight ministers of Arctic states “Emphasize[s] the importance of gender equality and respect for diversity for sustainable development in the Arctic… encourage[s] the mainstreaming of gender-based analysis in the work of the Arctic Council and call[s] for further action to advance gender equality in the Arctic”. This report and its policy relevant highlights, address these priorities and serve as a knowledge base for promoting gender equality and non-discrimination in the Arctic

The Russian Arctic by 2050: Developing Integrated Scenarios

Scenarios of future development pathways in the Arctic created by groups of experts and stakeholders are an effective way to identify and illustrate possible alternatives and options for this region based on anticipated environmental and socioeconomic changes. Although scenarios that assess development trajectories for the Arctic are becoming increasingly popular, there is a relative lack of regional perspective in foresight exercises devoted to the Russian Arctic. This article presents and discusses development scenarios for the Russian Arctic until 2050 that were built by a diverse group of academics, local officials, Indigenous leaders, and business representatives at a scenario workshop in Naryan-Mar, Russia. The scenarios focus on Russia’s Arctic zone and incorporate future visioning of economic development, international cooperation with the West and China, shipping, human and social capital, and Indigenous peoples’ livelihoods in the context of climate change. We apply a novel circular-axial technique to synthesize and combine the 12 initially created thematic scenarios into four final cross-cutting integrated scenarios that describe alternative futures for the Russian Arctic by 2050: Harmonious Arctic, Self-Reliant Arctic, Resource-Dependent Arctic, and Forgotten Arctic. Les scénarios de trajectoires de développement futur dans l’Arctique créés par des groupes d’experts et de parties prenantes constituent une manière efficace de déterminer et d’illustrer des solutions de rechange et des options possibles pour cette région, en fonction des changements environnementaux et socioéconomiques attendus. Même si les scénarios évaluant les trajectoires de développement dans l’Arctique gagnent en popularité, les exercices de prévision sont caractérisés par le manque relatif de perspective régionale axée sur l’Arctique russe. Cet article présente et aborde des scénarios de développement pour l’Arctique russe. Ces scénarios s’étendent jusqu’en 2050 et sont le fruit du travail de divers groupes d’universitaires, d’autorités locales, de chefs autochtones et de représentants du monde des affaires ayant participé à un atelier de scénarios qui s’est déroulé à Naryan-Mar, en Russie. Les scénarios se concentrent sur la zone arctique russe et intègrent la vision future du développement économique, de la coopération internationale avec l’Ouest et la Chine, du transport, du capital humain et social et de la subsistance des peuples autochtones dans le contexte du changement climatique. Nous appliquons une technique circulaire-axiale nouvelle pour synthétiser et combiner les 12 scénarios thématiques initialement créés afin d’aboutir à quatre scénarios intersectoriels intégrés décrivant les solutions de rechange futures pour l’Arctique russe d’ici 2050, soit un Arctique harmonieux, un Arctique autonome, un Arctique dépendant des ressources, et un Arctique oublié.&nbsp