RESILIENCE AND MANAGEMENT OF ARCTIC WETLANDS PHASE 2 REPORT

The report examines the ecological importance of Arctic wetlands, particularly their role in global carbon storage and biodiversity, while analyzing the public policy frameworks used by Arctic states to manage them. It highlights that while scientific knowledge of wetland functions is extensive, significant gaps exist in policy coherence, the influence of societal interest networks, and real-time mapping. The document advocates for a Social-Ecological Systems (SES) approach to stewardship, emphasizing the necessity of indigenous and local community participation and the adoption of advanced geospatial AI tools to improve wetland inventories and monitoring.

• Arctic wetlands are critical for global climate regulation, storing an estimated 20% or more of the Earth's terrestrial carbon despite covering only about 3% of the land area.
• The primary barriers to scaling up wetland restoration in the Arctic are not a lack of ecological knowledge, but rather issues with policy design and implementation.
• Effective wetland policy in the Arctic faces three main challenges: inconsistency between different policy goals, fragmented responsibility across agencies with contrasting missions, and poor communication between those agencies.
• There is a critical need for improved, high-accuracy mapping of Arctic wetlands, with geospatial data and artificial intelligence identified as key tools for creating up-to-date pan-Arctic inventories.
• Participation by indigenous and local communities is considered essential for successful stewardship, moving from simple consultation toward co-management and co-production.
• In the Russian Federation, ecosystem restoration is not explicitly regulated by legislation; instead, the term 'reclamation' is used, which focuses on restoring the economic productivity of disturbed lands.
• The United States manages wetlands primarily through Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, which requires permits from the Army Corps of Engineers for the discharge of dredge and fill materials.
• Nordic countries utilize the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) to manage water quality and wetlands, employing a systemic approach based on river basins rather than political boundaries.
• Iceland's approach to wetland policy has evolved over decades, shifting from a focus on bird habitat restoration in the 1990s to prioritizing the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from drained peatlands since 2006.

APA

Carson, M., Barry, T., Clement, J., Johnsen, K., Huberth-Hansen, J.-P., Hugelius, G., Lonnstad, J., Powell, J., Magnússon, B., Minayeva, T., Nielsen, P. S., Sirin, A., Alm, D. S., Tammilehto, A., Thielke, S., & Persson, A.-M. (2021). RESILIENCE AND MANAGEMENT OF ARCTIC WETLANDS PHASE 2 REPORT. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/resilience-management-of-arctic-wetlands-phase-2-report-2021.pdf

Chicago

Carson, Marcus, Tom Barry, Joel Clement, Kathrine Johnsen, Jan-Petter Huberth-Hansen, Gustaf Hugelius, Jenny Lonnstad, et al. RESILIENCE AND MANAGEMENT OF ARCTIC WETLANDS PHASE 2 REPORT. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2021. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/resilience-management-of-arctic-wetlands-phase-2-report-2021.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{carson2021resilience, author = {Carson, Marcus and Barry, Tom and Clement, Joel and Johnsen, Kathrine and Huberth-Hansen, Jan-Petter and Hugelius, Gustaf and Lonnstad, Jenny and Powell, Jim and Magnússon, Borgþór and Minayeva, Tatiana and Nielsen, Palle Smedegaard and Sirin, Andrey and Alm, David Schönberg and Tammilehto, Anna and Thielke, Sydney and Persson, Anna-Marja}, title = {{RESILIENCE AND MANAGEMENT OF ARCTIC WETLANDS PHASE 2 REPORT}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2021}, month = may, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/resilience-management-of-arctic-wetlands-phase-2-report-2021.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }