Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 8.2
Schematic representation of the “grasshopper effect”
Itistimetoreturntothecoldtrappingideaanditsconnectionstobiomagnification.Thehy-
pothesis could be tested, but it would require a hemispheric monitoring and research effort
to do it. Timing was serendipitous. This was when Finland proposed that Arctic countries
should cooperate to protect the Arctic environment and when Norway championed the idea
that it could not be done without a circumpolar monitoring programme. In another fortu-
nate coincidence, in 1990, the Canadian federal government announced the Green Plan, a
well-funded environmental programme directed towards sustainable development. One of
its components was a monitoring programme exclusively directed towards contaminants in
the Arctic in relation to indigenous diets: the Northern Contaminants Programme (NCP).
The Green Plan did not survive for long, but our NCP is still alive and is directed since
I retired at the end of 2004 by Russel Shearer. Our stable funding base made it possible
to not only build an adequate monitoring effort in Canada but to also strongly participate
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