This article describes a framework within which an initial strategy could be developed for managing commercial exploitation of marine living resources of the Southern Ocean, particularly of krill and fish, in accordance with Article II of the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). Quantitative predictions involving multi–species models are needed to assess any indirect impacts of fish or krill exploitation, and also for management to restore depleted populations. This article recommends research to provide the knowledge necessary for the models (identifying key species, estimating their demographic status, and experimental interference), and suggests interim management action to delimit management areas, agree target levels for stock–size, and monitor stocks. Early efforts to model the fishing operation are particularly recommended.

About fifty species of terrestrial arthropods have been collected in Antarctica; these include mites, ticks, springtails, sucking lice, biting lice and flies. The mites include both free-living and parasitic forms, the springtails and flies are free-living, and the ticks and lice are parasitic. The ticks, parasitic mites, and biting lice are associated with birds, and the sucking lice with seals. The number of species are about equally divided between free-living and parasitic forms. The ability of insects and mites to survive the very low winter temperatures and frequent strong winds of Antarctica is of considerable interest; judged in relation to commonly accepted ideas of tolerance, the environment is extremely forbidding.

Cryoconite holes have ecological and biotechnological importance. This article presents results on culturable cryophilic yeasts and filamentous fungi isolated from cryoconite holes at Austre and Vestre Brøggerbreen glaciers, Svalbard. Based on DNA sequence data, these were identified as Rhodotorula sp., Thelebolus sp., and Articulospora tetracladia. Amongst these, Articulospora tetracladia (88.7–89.4% gene similarity with 5.8S rDNA) is a novel species, yet to be described. Filamentous fungus Articulospora sp. Cry-FB1 and Cry-FB2, expressed high amylase, cellulase, lipase and protease activities while yeast Rhodotorula sp. Cry-FB3 showed high amylase and cellulase activity. Thelebolus sp. Cry-YB 240 and Cry-YB 241 showed protease and urease activities. The effects of temperature, and salt on the growth of the cultures were studied. Optimum temperature of growth was on 10ºC at pH 7.0. Filamentous fungi and yeast in the cryoconite holes possibly drive the process of organic macromolecule degradation through cold-adapted enzyme secretion, thereby assisting in nutrient cycling in these supraglacial environments. Further, these cryophilic fungi, due to their enzyme producing ability, may provide an opportunity for biotechnological research in the Arctic.

Seal hunting remains of vital importance to Inuit culture, but the value of seal meat extends beyond nutritional and dietary requirements. This article focuses on the contemporary ideology of subsistence in a Greenlandic scaling community, with particular reference to the sharing of seal meat. Seal hunting is not cash-oriented and therefore seal meat is not regarded as a commodity. When it is shared or given away as a gift it expresses the relationships people share with each other. Sharing cements bonds of kinship and close social association and remains a distinctive statement of community.

As indications of ‘overtourism’ appear in the Arctic, tourism presents both management challenges and ethical dilemmas, applicable to broader discussions about sustainability within Polar tourism. I argue that mapping value relations can contribute to ongoing discussions for positive ways forwards and that the concept of degrowth holds promise in redirecting tourism to better serve the local community. Tourism has become the largest employer and most rapidly growing sector in Svalbard, taking over from coal mining. Longyearbyen is a small urban centre but nevertheless is the central hub where almost all tourism passes through. Indeed, tourism is how the majority of human relations with its lands, seas, human and non-human inhabitants will be enabled. This paper is centred on charting the transition of Longyearbyen to a ‘tourist town’. Drawing on local voices from 2013 to 2016 and 2019, I use a value-based analysis to assess the changes experienced in the context of wider systems of value at work in Svalbard.

Research partnerships with northern communities hold promise for capacity and resilience against environmental changes. Given their historical ecological and cultural relationship with and, thus, ongoing concern for polar bears, Inuit communities are keen to participate in monitoring programmes. In spite of this, northern communities continue to meet polar bear research and collaborations with some resistance. Here, we summarise and report interviews with Nunavummiut from four communities on Inuit experiences with polar bears and research perspectives. Research interactions reveal ongoing cultural, socio-ecological and ethical barriers to polar bear research projects. Research licenses and standardised ethics procedures do not always guarantee collaborations. Adaptable research methods, mutual understanding and open dialogue are essential to form strong research partnerships with northern communities.

Water related activities result in a large number of fatalities annually throughout Canada, especially in the Canadian north, where drowning rates are up to ten times the national average. This study used participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and archival research to understand why residents of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories (NWT) rarely wear lifejackets. Three themes emerged. Firstly residents largely perceive lifejackets to be inaccessible, secondly drownings are attributed to factors other than failing to wear a lifejacket and thirdly lifejacket use is not encouraged by important individuals in the community. It is suggested that successful lifejacket promotion for this population requires drowning prevention programmes that move away from simplistic approaches that encourage people to wear lifejackets and instead must utilise an approach that addresses each component of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB).

In regions periodically subjected to falls of snow, major obstacles to the movement of men and vehicles are caused rather by the formation of drifts than by the uniform deposition of snow. Even in countries where snow-fall is not heavy, drifting can occasionally cause a breakdown of transport over a large area. Drifts form when snow-bearing winds meet obstacles which cause eddies in the wind stream and a local reduction in wind speed. The snow is deposited out of the wind stream into these regions of comparative calm, and the process continues for as long as an obstacle is effective in reducing wind speed.

During an early summer visit in 2000, mosses were collected from sites around Heard Island. Three species, Bryoerythrophyllum recurvirostrum (Hedw.) P.C.Chen, Philonotis cf. tenuis (Taylor) Reichardt and Syntrichia filaris (Müll.Hall) R.H. Zander have been added to the list of moss species known from the island, bringing the total to 40 moss taxa. Syntrichia anderssonii (abcngström) R.H. Zander was found with sporophytes, whereas previously its sporophytes were known in the sub-Antarctic only from Macquarie Island. Extensions of range on Heard Island have been recorded for several species. There are few geographical differences in species composition between locations around the island, provided appropriate habitats exist.

A geochemical study of the Severnaya Dvina estuary was carried out during two oceanographic cruises to the White Sea. The amount and distribution of trace (Mn, Co, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn) and major (Al and Fe) elements in suspended particulate matter and sediments were determined. The main source of most metals studied was river discharge. A metal speciation study showed that the prevailing form is in the estuarine sediments, the minerals of which incorporated 60–99% of the total metal contents. Two zones of metal accumulation were found in sediments that were considered as local geochemical barriers within the major river–sea barrier.

This article analyses the historical conditions and technical, social, commercial and political factors that have contributed to the revival of longline fishing in Iceland. Longline fishing practices have had important consequences at both the local and the national levels. This article deals, firstly, with the juridical and historical conditions of the development of small boat fishing practices since the beginning of the 1990s and the process through which small boats became progressively larger. Secondly, the paper describes the evolution of longline fishing practices and focuses more specifically on the technical, commercial, social and professional aspects of a new version of longline fishing that was developed in response to new marine management rules. It then deals with a specific kind of competitiveness that those living in coastal villages established to re-boost the local economy and discusses what has happened to small boat owners since 2000. The conclusion highlights the way longline fishing, by reconnecting social ties, takes part in the construction of contemporary Icelandic culture.

Canada and the USSR together possess most of the territory in the Northern Hemisphere underlain by permafrost or perennially frozen ground. As about one half of the land area of each country is affected, the permafrost region of the Soviet Union is 2½ times larger than that of Canada. Outside mountainous regions, permafrost extends southward in Canada to the southern tip of James Bay at lat 51° N (Brown, in press). Permafrost extends farther south in eastern Asia, however, and occurs in Outer Mongolia and Manchuria to about lat 47° N Fig 1) (Baranov, 1959; Nekrasov, 1962).

Vertical accelerometers deployed on fast ice in Raudfjorden, Svalbard in early summer 1983 recorded characteristics of ice-coupled waves at the ice edge and during their passage under die ice sheet. Subsequent analysis indicated an unexpected increase in amplitude of waves of all periods some 20 to 30 m in from die ice edge. This is associated with a pair of heavily-damped waves, which become especially relevant at or beyond some critical angle and decay rapidly with distance from the edge; their coalescence may account for the increase in wave amplitude, and explain why ice tends to break out in strips parallel to the ice edge.

The Arctic is commonly perceived as a pristine wilderness, yet more than four centuries of human industry have not left Svalbard untouched. This paper explores the historical dimension of human-induced ecosystem change using human presence as a proxy. Its aims are fourfold: to reconstruct and quantify historical human presence, to ascertain if human presence is a suitable indicator of long-term anthropogenic pressure, to deduce trends in anthropogenic pressure on five selected species of game animal, and to postulate trends in their subpopulation sizes. Published sources give rise to 57 datasets dealing with the annual voyages to Svalbard as well as the participants in them. All known archaeological sites are visualised in a distribution map. Despite the large amount of data, the quantification of historical human presence remains biased and partial. Only with the aid of a timeline of known milestones is it possible to make hypotheses about changes in anthropogenic pressure and animal subpopulations over time. The exercise is nonetheless a necessary and instructive one: it confirms that the erroneous view of Svalbard as a pristine ecosystem hinders timely historical-ecological research. Future work must aim at the systematic quantification of past human impact in a holistic approach to environmental conservation and restoration.

When geographers recommended the exploration of the Antarctic regions at the close of the nineteenth century, Germany and Britain were eager to do their best. The promoters of Antarctic research, such as Georg von Neumayer (1826–1909) in Hamburg and Clements Markham (1830–1916) in London, could finally raise enough money to build national flagships for science. Despite unfavourable political circumstances, due to political rivalry between Germany and Great Britain, the leaders of the expeditions — Erich von Drygalski (1865–1949) and Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) — agreed to a scientific collaboration with regard to meteorological and magnetic measurements in Antarctica during 1901–1903, which later was extended until 1904. This paper reveals that favourable circumstances such as the International Geographical Congresses in London (1895) and Berlin (1899) played a major role in increasing scientific interest in and public support of Antarctic research, ultimately leading to international collaboration.

The background to the development and implementation of environmental impact assessment procedures in Antarctica is reviewed and the principles and procedures of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (the Madrid Protocol of 1991) are outlined. The difficulties in determining the appropriate level of assessment and the practical, operational aspects of carrying out the evaluations are examined. Particular attention is given to the meaning of terminology in the Protocol, the interpretation of environmental principles and standards, alternatives to the proposed activity, the requirements for sufficient information, the process of obtaining and taking into account public comment, the monitoring of environmental indicators, and the practical implications where an activity needs to be suspended, cancelled, or modified. The workloads generated by the procedures and the credibility of the processes are discussed in view of a possible perception that the exercises may amount to little more than ‘red tape’ to justify decisions that would be taken in any case. Recommendations are made that could improve the EIA process in Antarctica.

Seismic survey activities in the western Beaufort Sea, involving ships and sound production, were monitored in autumn 1982 for their possible effects on migrating Bowhead whales Balaena mysticetus. The study, begun in 1981 by die Minerals Management Service of the US Department of the Interior, covered offshore waters between the Alaskan coast and 72°N. Distribution, behaviour and numbers of whales were recorded, and procedures were established for monitoring and controlling seismic activities in their presence.

Scurvy was known from the earliest times as a condition likely to arise when men were constrained to live upon a limited diet because of crop failure, siege or extended voyaging. It was first clearly described in the thirteenth century but, although its connexion with restricted supplies and especially with paucity of vegetables and fruit in the diet, was recognized from that period, its occurrence was ascribed to many other factors. Thus, because it often affected many members of a closed community at about the same time, it was thought to be contagious; and although conditions such as cold, the diminution of daylight in polar regions and the constant humidity of sea voyages were the reason for lack of fresh fruits and vegetables, these conditions themselves were suggested as causes of the disease. Likewise poverty, resulting in overcrowding and insanitary conditions, was blamed, whilst in reality economic conditions prevented the poor from buying antiscorbutic foods.

In this article, we introduce the concept of politics of comparison in tourism development, looking at how comparison contributes to shaping and making sense of tourism development in Greenland. Decision makers and operators in Greenland foresee tourism growth as new transatlantic airports are set to open by 2024. To navigate an uncertain tourism future, many look towards neighbouring Iceland, who experienced exponential growth in international tourism arrivals between 2010 and 2018. In this North Atlantic reflection, comparison also works as a tool to understand tourism, positioning Greenland as a potential destination and deliberating about the future of tourism in the region, while also bringing forth competing logics and trajectories of development. Thus, comparison serves to engage with the meaning and value of tourism, seeing it not only as a pillar of the economy but also as a force affecting landscapes and communities. We argue that the comparisons made by tourism actors work epistemologically – creating knowledge of ‘what is’ – as well as ontologically, forcefully interfering with and producing tourism realities.