Conclusion - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 271

Changes in Arctic regions are occurring extremely rapidly in both social and
environmental spheres, with the two inextricably linked (AMAP 1998; ACIA
2005; Stroeve et al . 2008; Serreze et al . 2009; SWIPA 2011). According to the
2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, the Arctic experiences some of
the most rapid and severe climate change on Earth. Undergoing rapid climate
change is one of the important environmental challenges the Arctic commu-
nities must face and which will affect both the circumpolar region and its
population as well as the rest of the world through increased global warming
and rising sea levels (ACIA 2005). Melting Arctic ice will potentially improve
access to the significant northern fishing areas, and thus can significantly affect
the regional economies, wildlife resources and the livelihoods of many Arctic
populations (both positively and negatively). Russian policy makers, among
others, link the ongoing climate change in the Arctic with the hope to see the
development of a Northern Sea Route that might compete with the Suez Canal
route for commercial maritime traffic, and while analysts differ on how quickly
it will become commercially viable, the consensus seems to indicate that the
passage will be largely ice free by the summer of 2015 (Gorenburg 2011:11).
Rapid climate change is additionally leading to serious risks to human health,
food security and possibly to survival of some indigenous communities that
heavily depend economically and culturally upon hunting, herding, fishing
and gathering (Anderssen and Gabrielsen 2005). Booming ecotourism has
many implications for northerly communities, currently in transition, where
new economic approaches are met with both excitement and trepidation, with
the old ways of pursuing a livelihood disappearing (Hovelsrud and Smit 2010),
where implications for agriculture and other types of land use are uncertain,
habitat and diet are changing, and vulnerability to chemical contaminants and
pollutions are increasing (AMAP 2004).
Climate change is leading to rapid melting Arctic ice cover and, thereby,
expanding the opportunities for Arctic natural resources extraction, making
the Arctic a potentially new resource frontier. The much-cited US Geological
Survey generated excitement with the realization that the Arctic contains 30
per cent of the world's undiscovered gas and 13 per cent of its undiscovered oil,
mostly offshore in less than 500 metres of water (Gautier et al . 2009). Access
to hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic is both a core economic benefit, as well
as a challenge. The Arctic states are laying claim to their national interests
(in part through militarization) in preparation for the extraction of hydrocar-
bon resources in the region. Many governments, including Norway (Finnmark/
Barents Sea Offshore), Greenland (West coast by Baffin Bay), the US (Alaska/
Beaufort and Chukchi Seas) and Russia (Prirazlomnoje oil field/Barents Sea
Offshore) are approving drilling in deeper, riskier, more ecologically sensitive
Arctic environments, justifying this through the mantra of 'energy security'
(Simpson 2007). Thus, today's Arctic demonstrates how the security concept
can be easily manipulated and how the rhetoric of energy security has often been
used as an excuse for governing elites to pursue centralized industrialization and