New possibilities for economic development have been identified by the Greenland Home Rule Government in recent years. One of these is the potential for development of biotechnology based on Greenland's biodiversity. To ensure that Greenland shares in benefits derived from the exploitation of these resources the Home Rule Parliament recently enacted legislation on commercial and research-related use of biological resources that is premised on rights recognised by the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. This legislation represents the first law in an Arctic jurisdiction specifically to create a mechanism for access and benefit sharing in relation to Arctic genetic resources. The main area of research and commercial interest so far relates to potential developments in biotechnology from the microbial diversity of ikaite tufa columns located in the Ikka Fjord in southwest Greenland. The legislation seeks to provide a mechanism for regulating access to such biological resources and a means for Greenland to share in the potential benefits that may come from scientific research on them and subsequent commercialisation. Much research in Greenland now falls within the scope of this legislation. The purpose of this article is to explain the provisions of the legislation to the polar research community as well as to review its implications for research in the International Polar Year and later. The legislation imposes many new obligations on researchers in Greenland including obligations to obtain survey licences, obligations on reporting and the regulation of publication of scientific research. Commercially focussed research is also tightly regulated with a particular emphasis on patent rights. However, many aspects of the legislation are uncertain and it is unclear how much of the legislation will be implemented in practice.

Frederick Gustavus Schwatka was one of America's most important Arctic explorers. While honoured in his time, he is only a footnote in the search for Sir John Franklin. He commanded, in 1878–1880, an expedition of the American Geographical Society of New York which had the aim of retrieving records from King William Island. Although none were found, he did discover a number of expedition relics and remains. His extensive sledge journey during this expedition was one of the longest recorded by a European-North American expedition, over 5232 km (3,251 statute miles). Moreover it was conducted under some of the coldest conditions ever endured in polar exploration. Schwatka's party included three Europeans, William H. Gilder, a journalist from The New York Herald, Henry Klutschak, a naturalist, and Frank E. Melms, an experienced seaman, and ‘Eskimo Joe’ Ebierbing, an Inuit who had served on previous expeditions in search of Franklin. ‘Schwatka's search’, as it was known, concluded efforts to discover the fate of the Franklin expedition in the nineteenth century. It laid the groundwork for the important expeditions in the twentieth century that revealed new information concerning the fate of Franklin's men. Schwatka's expedition was without death or deprivation. Much of his success was based on a clearly defined plan and on adopting Inuit practices including living off the land, lessons he learned from his experiences with American Indians as part of his military assignments. Born in Illinois, he was educated at West Point, the United States Military Academy, acquitted himself well in the Indian Wars and then went on to qualify for the bar and secured a medical degree during his military service. He died an early and unfortunate death at the age of 43. The research reported in this article provides an understanding of the factors that shaped Schwatka and the skills that he used in this expedition.

From an early age, Prince Albert I of Monaco evinced a strong fascination for the polar regions. But it was only after 1898 that he was able to mount four scientific cruises to Svalbard on his yacht, the second Princesse-Alice. The first cruise was an oceanographical and zoological reconnaissance, aimed mainly at adding to the collections of the Musée océanographique de Monaco, the construction of which had just started. In 1899, the focus was on the hydrography and topography of Raudfjorden, of which a map was published. In 1906, meteorology was added to the range of observations and surveys were pursued. The Prince also provided support for two other expeditions, that of the Norwegian, Gunnar Isachsen, to northwestern Spitsbergen, and that of the Scotsman, William Bruce, to Prins Karls Forland. The Prince's expedition in 1907 was aimed at completing the results from the previous summer. Prince Albert also lent his support, either financially, or through gifts or loans of oceanographic instruments, to numerous Arctic and Antarctic explorers. Finally, he showed a keen interest in environmental protection, especially in Svalbard. This is demonstrated by his responses to a questionnaire that Hugo Conwentz sent him in 1912.

Commander John P. Cheyne, R.N. (1826–1902) is a forgotten figure in the history of nineteenth-century polar exploration. A veteran of three expeditions in search of the missing Franklin expedition, his retirement was atypical of the many naval officers who had served in the Arctic. Late in 1876, after the disappointing return of the British Arctic expedition under George Strong Nares, Cheyne first announced his grand plans to reach the North Pole by balloon. He embarked on a transatlantic lecture tour in an effort to raise funds. It was a novel proposal that captured public imagination, but also drew wide criticism, and sometimes ridicule. This paper draws upon a study of primary and secondary materials: original manuscripts and correspondence, British and American newspapers and the illustrated press, souvenirs, pamphlets, and periodical reviews. This is a neglected episode in the history of polar exploration and in the history of aeronautics more generally, and it is a story of naivety and optimism, bravado and speculation. This paper examines the prevailing currents of public opinion of the value of exploration in this period, the debates surrounding new techniques of polar travel, and the changing image of the explorer. Both aeronautical pioneer and itinerant showman, Cheyne was increasingly maligned as a charlatan and lunatic. He proved unable to realise his dream of polar flight.

This article is a sequel to a word-model description of the ecosystem of sub-Antarctic Marion Island, published in this journal 30 years ago (Smith 1977). It expands on the qualitative considerations of patterns of energy flow and nutrient cycling presented in that paper, by providing quantitative information from subsequent research at the island. Primary production of the island's lowland plant communities is high on an annual basis, because the vegetation has a long growing season due to the lack of severely cold winters or drought. Daily productivity is actually low due to low radiation levels and a cool growing season. The vegetation is particularly efficient regarding its use of nutrients for its growth, but still requires substantial amounts of nutrients to support the high annual production. Seabirds and seals import large quantities of nutrients from the ocean when they breed and moult on the island. They markedly enhance soil and plant nutrient status in the areas in which they occur, and also in adjacent areas. However, by far the greater part of the island's inland vegetation is not directly influenced by birds or seals and most of the nutrients required for plant growth are provided by decomposition of plant litter and peat. Soil invertebrates are crucial facilitators of decomposition processes, which are otherwise restricted by low soil temperatures and high soil moisture contents. Introduced house mice have invaded almost all parts of the island and predate heavily on the invertebrates, thus affecting nutrient mineralisation. This threatens not only the functioning (lowered nutrient availability leading to slower plant growth and the production of a lower quality, more decomposition-recalcitrant plant litter), but also the structure (an altered balance between production and decomposition leads to a change in the relation between peat formation and degradation, which is an important determinant of vegetation succession) of the island's ecosystem. It is suggested that mice may also affect the island's ecology by predating on seabird chicks.

With the International Polar Year (IPY) having commenced in March 2007, key issues relating to the polar regions are again in focus. This article reviews one central legal issue re-emerging in the Arctic: global regulation of safety standards for international shipping. The ‘Guidelines for ships operating in Arctic ice-covered waters’ are examined, with a view to the probable expansion of shipping in the Arctic in near future. Following an introduction to navigational issues within the Arctic context, the article describes how the guidelines came into being, and then analyses key elements and structure of the regulations and shortfalls of today's arrangements. The possible relevance of the guidelines to the Antarctic is also discussed briefly. Finally, the article inquires into the key repercussions of introducing binding regulations.

Two terrestrial Crustacea, Puhuruhuru patersoni (Amphipoda: Talitridae) and Styloniscus otakensis (Isopoda: Styloniscidae), were discovered on sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island in 1991 and 1992, respectively. Each species was identified as having been described, and previously only known, from South Island, New Zealand and from some of New Zealand's southern offshore islands. The distributions of the two species on Macquarie Island have been mapped in detail on four occasions over the last fifteen years, each mapping extending previously existing distributions or showing changes from the earlier records. Details of all four years' mapping are figured. It is concluded that these species were most likely introduced between 1810 and 1919 and that populations of the amphipod have not expanded to any extent in the twelve years between 1992 and 2004 but that the isopod has slightly increased its range. Both species are macrodetritivores, a trophic group not well represented on the island, so there is the possibility of an irreversible change to the Macquarie Island ecosystem if they become more widespread with warming climates. However no such change has yet been observed. The advantages and feasibility of removing these two exotic species from the island is discussed, as are the possible routes by which the species were introduced to the island.

In the century since Roald Amundsen and Robert F. Scott led the first and second expeditions to reach the South Pole, commentators have frequently passed judgement on the different means of transport that the two explorers employed. In hindsight, and since he ‘won,’ they have consistently praised Amundsen for using dogs exclusively and criticised Scott for not doing the same. Surprisingly, however, almost no attention has been given to the experience of Amundsen's dogs, whose extreme suffering seems to have vanished into a collective blind spot. Here, with the aim of restoring balance to one part of the vexed historiography of the two explorers, that record is set straight. Amundsen's troubled and contradictory attitude towards his animals is also explored and common misconceptions about Scott's views on the use of dogs for transport are confuted.

This article presents the US role in the formation of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 in relation to the era's anti-nuclear movement. The purpose is two-fold: to highlight the strategic orientation of US Antarctic policy, suggesting that it was less enlightened than it is frequently portrayed; and to highlight the influence of the anti-nuclear movement upon the treaty's inclusion of a test ban which the United States initially opposed, hoping to reserve the right to conduct nuclear tests. The treaty is depicted as a particular generalisation: one aspect of the cold war that gains significance when scrutinised in relation to another that is much better-known.

This paper lists accounts of whaling voyages to the Arctic from British ports, dating from the early 17th to early 20th centuries, that are available as logbooks, journals or publications for study in British, Canadian or United States public institutions. Included are all original whaling logbooks and journals located by the authors, mainly but not exclusively from previous listings, plus early publications by whaling masters, mates, surgeons and others in the trade containing details of particular voyages, and later accounts based on edited versions of holograph manuscripts. Records of whaling voyages are of intrinsic historical and sociological value, and many include data on weather and sea ice conditions that are of particular relevance to current studies of climatic variation.

During the spring of 2006, Radarsat-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery was acquired on a continual basis for the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area (TLSA), in the northeast portion of the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska (NPR-A) in order to monitor lake ice melting processes. During data processing, it was discovered that the Radarsat-1 imagery detected features associated with winter seismic survey activity. Focused analysis of the image time series revealed various aspects of the exploration process such as the grid profile associated with the seismic line surveys as well as trails and campsites associated with the mobile survey crews. Due to the high temporal resolution of the dataset it was possible to track the progress of activities over a one month period. Spaceborne SAR imagery can provide information on the location of winter seismic activity and could be used as a monitoring tool for land and resource managers as increased petroleum-based activity occurs in the TLSA and NPR-A.

This article compares the representations of aboriginal people, and especially the Yellowknife leader Akaitcho, in the journal written by John Franklin during his first expedition (1819–1822) and the narrative he published in 1823. In the introduction to his 1995 Champlain Society edition of Franklin's journal, Richard Davis claims that when revising the journal for publication, Franklin changed his original entries so as to present an unfavourable, stereotyped image of Akaitcho to the British reading public. However, comparison of the relevant passages shows that, while Franklin evidently viewed Akaitcho with distrust during much of the expedition, he later, and on reflection, changed his opinion so that it became much more favourable, and accordingly altered the journal entries in order to do Akaitcho justice. These facts cast doubt on the interpretation of the first Franklin expedition put forward by Davis and others.

This paper examines the international response to India's 1956 proposal to raise the ‘Antarctic Question’ at the United Nations. It focuses in particular on the uneasy alliance that developed between the British Commonwealth and Latin America in opposition to the Indian proposal. Although Great Britain, Argentina, and Chile were bitterly disputing the sovereignty of the Antarctic Peninsula region, they shared a common desire to keep the southern continent off the agenda of the United Nations. This ability to work together for common goals, despite their differences, set an important precedent for the Antarctic Treaty that would be signed in 1959. In this way, opposition to the Indian proposal, more than the proposal itself, played an important role in the history of Antarctica in the 1950s. Latin American opposition to the proposal helped to fragment any ‘anti-imperial’ coalition that might have developed in Antarctica. This fragmentation helps us to place the Antarctic Treaty System into the framework of post-colonial studies.

Sea ice has been, and continues to be, an integral component of life in the Inuit community of Igloolik, Nunavut. Located on an island of the same name off the northeastern coast of Melville Peninsula, extensive ice formation occurs in Fury and Hecla Strait. This creates an important travel and hunting platform, and enables access to Baffin Island, the mainland, moving ice, hunting and fishing grounds, and nearby communities. With the combined importance, dynamism, and continuous use of this frozen ocean environment, local Inuit elders and hunters have developed a detailed and nuanced understanding of sea ice conditions, freeze/thaw processes, and the influences of winds and currents on ice conditions. Working collaboratively with the community of Igloolik since February 2004, we present the results of 24 semi-directed interviews and 4 sea ice trips to provide a baseline understanding of local freezing processes (near-shore, open water, sea ice thickening, landfast ice, tidal cracks, floe edge, and moving ice), melting processes (snow melt, water accumulation and drainage, and break-up), wind influences on sea ice (wind direction and strength affecting sea ice formation and movement), and, current influences on sea ice (tidal variations and current strength affecting sea ice formation, movement, and polynya size/location). Strong emphasis is placed on Inuktitut terminology and spatial delineations of localised ice conditions and features. Therefore, this paper provides insights into local scale ice conditions and dynamics around Igloolik that are not captured in regional scale studies of Foxe Basin and/or Fury and Hecla Strait. Results have the potential to inform future research efforts on local/regional sea ice monitoring, the relationship between Inuit knowledge, language, and the environment, and addressing community interests through targeted studies.

As the fourth International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008, gets into full swing it is timely to reflect on the history of development of international scientific collaboration in the IPYs since the first one in 1882–1883, including the third, which evolved into the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957–1958. The success of international scientific collaboration in the IGY led the International Council for Science (ICSU), the body that managed the IGY, to create the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) to carry forward the collaboration in Antarctic science that had begun during the IGY. This year, 2008, seems an appropriate time to undertake such an historical review, given that we are not only midway through the fourth IPY, but also that it is SCAR's 50th anniversary; the first SCAR meeting having been held in The Hague on 3–5 February 1958. Since SCAR's membership began with 12 member countries and 4 ICSU unions, membership has grown to 34 countries and 8 ICSU unions, with more expected to join at the 30th meeting of SCAR in Moscow in July 2008. Both SCAR's activities and those of the fourth IPY benefit from international collaboration not only between scientists, but also between the national Antarctic operations managers, working together through the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programmes (COMNAP), and national policy makers working together through the Antarctic Treaty mechanisms. Thanks to all their efforts, the IPY of 2007–2009 will leave behind a legacy of enhanced observing systems for documenting the status and change of all aspects of the Antarctic environment as the basis for improved forecasting of its future condition. SCAR expects to play a major role in the design of those systems and their use to improve scientific understanding of the place of the Antarctic in the global environmental system, and the pace and direction of change within that system.

Two complementary studies were conducted to investigate both the immediate and longer-term influence of Antarctic cruise tourism experiences on participants’ knowledge of Antarctica, attitudes toward management issues facing the Antarctic region, and environmental behaviours and future intentions. In addition, the study investigated tourists’ attitudes toward visitor guidelines. The results suggest that Antarctica nature-based tourism operators have the potential to provide experiences that educate the public to the importance of Antarctica.

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.

Sea ice has been, and continues to be, an integral component of life in the Inuit community of Pangnirtung, Nunavut. Located in a fiord of the same name off the northeastern end of Cumberland Sound, extensive ice formation occurs within the fiord and the sound. This creates an important travel and hunting platform, and enables access to the coastlines of Cumberland Sound, hunting and fishing grounds, and nearby communities. With the combined importance, dynamism, and continuous use of this frozen ocean environment, local Inuit elders and hunters have developed a detailed and nuanced understanding of sea ice conditions, freeze/thaw processes, and the influences of winds and currents on ice conditions. Working collaboratively with the community of Pangnirtung since September 2003, we present the results of 30 semi-directed interviews, 5 sea ice trips, and 2 focus groups to provide a baseline understanding of local freezing processes (near-shore, open water, sea ice thickening, landfast ice, tidal cracks, and the floe edge), melting processes (snow melt, water accumulation and drainage, and break-up), wind influences on sea ice (wind direction and strength affecting sea ice formation and movement), and, current influences on sea ice (tidal variations and current strength affecting sea ice formation, movement, and polynya size/location). Strong emphasis is placed on Inuktitut terminology and spatial delineations of localised ice conditions and features. Therefore, this paper provides insights into local scale ice conditions and dynamics around Pangnirtung that are not captured in regional scale studies of Cumberland Sound and/or Davis Strait. As the third in a series of three papers on the same subject, but from different communities in the Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin) Region of Nunavut, this paper also provides a comparative summary of Inuktitut and scientific sea ice terminology along with an overview of the broader implications of results for collaborative science, education, and heritage initiatives.

Although there are a number of distinct audiences (for example students, hunter and trapper organisations, and co-management agencies) for traditional environmental knowledge, little work has been done in analysing how indigenous knowledge can be best communicated to these different groups. Using examples mainly from northern Canada and Alaska, we explore the challenge of collecting and communicating different kinds of traditional environmental knowledge; the media types or communication modes that can be used; and the appropriateness of these kinds of media for communicating with different audiences. A range of communication options is available, including direct interaction with knowledge holders, use of print media, maps, DVD/video, audio, CD ROM, and websites. These options permit a mix-and-match to find the best fit between kinds of knowledge, the intended audience, and the media type used. This paper does not propose to replace traditional methods of communication with technology. Rather, we examine how technology can serve community and other needs. No single option emerges as a clear best choice for communicating indigenous knowledge. Nevertheless, various media types offer avenues through which northern people can meet their educational, cultural, and political needs, and build cross-cultural understanding.

Norse immigrants from Europe settled in southern Greenland in around AD 985 and managed to create a farming community during the Medieval Warm Period. The Norse vanished after approximately 500 years of existence in Greenland leaving no documentary evidence concerning why their culture foundered. The flooding of fertile grassland caused by late Holocene sea-level changes may be one of the factors that affected the Norse community. Holocene sea-level changes in Greenland are closely connected with the isostatic response of the Earth's crust to the behaviour of the Greenlandic ice sheet. An early Holocene regressive phase in south and west Greenland was reversed during the middle Holocene, and evidence is found for transgression and drowning of early-middle Holocene coast lines. This drowning started between 8 and 7ka BP in southern Greenland and continued during the Norse era to the present. An average late Holocene sea level rise in the order of 2–3 m/1000 years may be one of the factors that negatively affected the life of the Norse Greenlanders, and combined with other both socio-economic and environmental problems, such as increasing wind and sea ice expansion at the transition to the Little Ice Age, may eventually have led to the end of the Norse culture in Greenland.