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Arctic Games – Interactive development and application of a transdisciplinary framework for sustainable governance options of Arctic natural resources | 29-03-2012 |
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The project is implemented for Mistra Arctic Futures
Project Dates: January 2011 December 2013
Project Summary:
The future development of the Arctic region is of interest for the entire world. The area is biologically connected to the rest of the world by, for example, migrating fishes, whales and birds. Further, the Arctic is the region where the environmental impacts of climate change are most strongly expressed. The Polar Regions work as cooling systems for the Earth and global warming causes ice melting and sea level rise. Thus, environmental changes in the Arctic will change conditions for societies both within the area and in the world as a whole. The Arctic is also an area of strategic interest concerning issues such as extraction of natural gas and oil, fishery, tourism, shipping, etc.
In the research project Arctic Games we explore and study these tradeoffs by developing an analytical framework for analyzing and assessing strategic behavior of various stakeholders; economic values of ecosystem services and the role of appropriate governance structures. We do this by using a data from a study site that can illustrate some of the typical Arctic issues. The choice of case study area is based on several requirements:
(i) existing or up-coming conflicts connected to use of natural resources involving strategic behavior,
(ii) the area must represent some, or several, urgent Arctic issues enabling the framework to be generalized or transferred to other Arctic areas or issues,
(iii) data availability must be fairly good since the framework development demands certain levels of data. Lofoten archipelago in northern Norway fulfills our three requirements and was chosen as a case study area for the project.
The Project Partners:
Enveco Environmental Economics Consultancy Ltd., Sweden; the Centre for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR), Russia; Northern Research Institute (NORUT), Norway; the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden; Stockholm University, Sweden; and University of Nordland, Norway. |
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