Bridging the GAPS between ecology and human security - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 144

2007). Given the situation, an obvious question to ask is: 'Does the human
security framework have any relevance for examining the impacts of ecologi-
cal changes in the Arctic?'
Franklyn Griffiths (2008) asked a related, but slightly different, question
in his 2008 conference paper: 'Is human security a good fit for the Arctic?'
Griffiths, a political scientist who comes to human security from its home
discipline, concluded, for various reasons, that human security is actually not
that good a fit with current Arctic issues. Two of these reasons were that
human security takes a tremendously individualistic perspective, and that
at the time of writing no one at the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) was
explicitly using the terminology. We agree with the latter observation, and
the GAPS (Gas, Arctic Peoples and Security, International Polar Year 2006-
2011) project that we developed after the 2004 Tromsø Workshop had an
explicit goal of using securities frameworks, including that of human secu-
rity, to inform research in an Arctic context around oil and gas development
(Hoogensen et al . 2009).
As previously stated, the human security framework parallels much of eco-
logical thinking. Therefore, to say that human security is first and foremost
about the individual, and therefore lacking in other dimensions, an argu-
ment that we have heard from other social scientists, in our view fails to take
account of its broader implications and processes, which allow for linkage
arrows pointing in all directions from the individual to the community and
beyond.
The present realities and future potential impacts of climate change, which
are occurring globally, will, if we are not explicit, obfuscate all local initia-
tives to improve individual and community wellbeing in the North. Without
saying as such, political scientists such as Abele et al . (2009) have clearly set
the stage for incorporating the obvious intersections between human security
and ecological change in the Arctic:
Global warming has certainly created economic opportunity in the North
but it also presents difficulties, even dangers, for all human endeavours.
Melting sea ice is opening northern waters to international traffic on a
scale never seen before. This development, in concert with intensifying
global interest in the vast oil, gas and mineral resources of the circumpo-
lar basin, puts the regulation of Arctic shipping, the establishment and
policing of boundaries and the management of potentially substantial
offshore drilling on the policy agenda. At the same time, the negative
impacts on local ecosystems and traditional activities such as hunting
require greater attention from policy makers, and there is a need for meas-
ures to help northerners adapt to the changes already being felt.
(Abele et al . 2009:4)