The Arctic Messenger Gains a Voice - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 37

inant transport to and within the Arctic, (2) persistent organic pollutants, (3) heavy metals
(mainly, lead, cadmium and mercury), (4) radioactivity, (5) acid rain, (6) petroleum hydro-
carbons, (7) climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion and (8) pollution and human
health. The four remaining chapters framed the geophysical, ecological and social condi-
tions of the Arctic, therefore serving to put the assessment chapters into context. For each
chapter, one or more “editors” gathered a team to prepare the assessment. In addition to
writing significant parts of the assessment themselves, the editors were assisted by up to
60 “authors”, who also contributed text but did not compile the chapter. Finally, “contribut-
ors” provided information or data that was unpublished at the time of the assessment. Each
chapter was then subjected to an independent scientific review. The latter was not always
easy to organise because it was often difficult to find specialists who were not involved in
some way with the chapter.
The “social” chapter was actually called “Peoples of the Arctic: Characteristics of
Human Populations Relevant to Pollution Issues”. The permanent participants, who also
provided most of the membership of the assessment team for this topic, nominated Henry
Huntington as the editor. The chapter provided an essential resource for the assessment of
human health risk from pollutant exposure as undertaken by the human health, radioactiv-
ity and climate assessment teams - a factor that led to a substantial interchange amongst
experts between the drafting groups. Janine Murray from Ottawa spent some time in Oslo
at this stage, helping the AMAP secretariat create a harmonious AAR document from the
mosaic ofindividual inputsandalsocoordinating chapters ontheArctic's physical andeco-
logical characteristics.
The plan was for the “plain language” SOAER to be prepared by a professional scien-
ce writer, Annika Nilsson, who would have the scientific AAR in front of her as she wrote.
However, we were committed to present the SOAER at the Fourth AEPS Ministerial Con-
ference in Alta, Norway, in 1997. Some of the AAR chapters were not completed in time,
and in these cases, Annika had to resort to a combination of using drafts and interviews
with editors and authors. The final check on the veracity of the SOAER to science was the
reviewbyAARdraftingteamsofthedraftSOAER.Annikamether1997Altadeadlineand