Arctic Human Development Report II

Preparation of AHDR-II has commenced to identify major trends that have taken place in the region since AHDR-I was published in 2004 as a “priority project” to provide a “comprehensive knowledge base” for the work of the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Programme. The significance of AHDR-I cannot be understated as it was the first to systematically provide social science baseline data on human development in the Arctic, which was till then primarily the attention of the physical/natural sciences. AHDR-II will formally commence at the beginning of 2012 and promises to be even more important from the legal point of view, with Nigel Bankes and Timo Koivurova preparing the associated chapter, when completed by the end of 2013.

CAFF Executive Secretary on Biodiversity

Tom Barry, Executive Secretary of the Arctic Council Working Group Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) has published a guest article in a recent edition of Biodiversity Policy and Practice news service discussing cooperation with CBD to support Arctic biodiversity.

CBD Recommendation on Biodiversity

The 15th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) adopted a recommendation on Arctic biodiversity to be forwarded to COP-11 taking place from 8-19 October 2012, in Hyderbad (India).

In the recommendation XV/7, SBSTTA:

- requests the Secretariat to include references to the work on ecologically and biologically significant areas (EBSAs) of the Oslo and Paris Conventions for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR) Convention and the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) in documentation on marine biodiversity for SBSTTA-16; and

recommends the COP:

- note the key findings of the Working Group on the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna of the Arctic Council (CAFF) report, including on climate change as a far-reaching stressor on biodiversity, the global significance of Arctic flora and fauna, and the provision of essential ecosystem services for Indigenous and Local Communities (ILCs);

- invite contributions from parties, international organizations and multilateral environmental agreements to the CAFF Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Programme (CBMP);

- request the Secretariat to make parties aware of biodiversity-related information and reports generated by the Arctic Council, including from the CBMP and the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment;

- welcome the work on EBSAs of the Arctic Council working groups and encourage them to continue cooperating with adjacent regional conventions and commissions, including OSPAR and NEAFC;

- encourage the further development of Arctic ecosystem resilience assessments and reports; and

- urge parties to promote the implementation of the Strategic Plan and relevant work programmes in relation to the Arctic environment.

Recommendation