Drying fish in a Greenland community.
Photo: Stine Rybråten/CICERO
Local policy issues in the Arctic key issues (such as the social impacts of commercial ship-
ping). Actual responses are likely to reflect differences
The impacts of changes in ice and snow are already major in the political and legal systems of the individual Arctic
concerns in small communities scattered throughout the states. In the US, the State of Alaska will be a source of
circumpolar North. Among the most significant of these support for individual communities facing the impacts of
are damage to infrastructure (such as buildings, munici- changes in ice and snow. In Greenland, the government
pal water and sewage system, roads, pipelines and air- of Denmark is a likely source. Other affected communi-
fields) arising from coastal storm surges and the deepen- ties, for example in the Russian North, may not receive
ing of the active layer of the permafrost; threats to safety sufficient support from outside of their regions.
(such as disintegration of sea ice used by hunters as a
staging area) caused by unfamiliar weather conditions; While the impacts considered in the preceding paragraph
health and nutritional concerns (related to availability of are generally negative, changes in ice and snow may also
country food) associated with changes in the abundance have positive consequences at the local level. Oil and gas
and migratory patterns of subsistence resources, and a development can become a source of jobs; there is some
variety of social effects arising from the growth of com- prospect that changes in sea ice will permit the devel-
mercial shipping and oil and gas development. The sig- opment of commercial fisheries in areas located farther
nificance of these effects will vary from one community north than existing fisheries, and conditions for agricul-
to another, and responses will differ – sometimes dra- ture may improve under a moderate warming. Jobs in
matically – from one part of the Arctic to another. What is the energy industry are often transient, and the sustain-
clear is that most individual communities lack the capac- ability of commercial fisheries in the Arctic may be low.
ity to cope effectively with these stresses, either because So long as expectations are moderate and communities
they do not have the resource base needed to reconstruct are careful to avoid undue dependence on these sectors,
physical infrastructure or to relocate or because they do however, changes in ice and snow can become a source
not have the authority to make binding decisions about of benefits as well as threats to human well-being.
CHAPTER 9 POLICY AND PERSPECTIVES 223