Sealing was the first exploitative industry in the Antarctic region. Throughout the 19th century it was characterised by large fluctuations in catches and shifts in hunting grounds as seals were almost exterminated in several locations. This paper reviews the historical literature on this industry. In particular it reviews sources and data that relate to its economic importance. So far, no one has succeeded in indicating the aggregate economic value of the industry. The main aim, therefore, is to investigate new data, especially on market prices that will enable a more accurate assessment of the significance of the industry.

Wildlife plays a significant role in the development of tourism in Nunavut. A certain amount of tourism in the Canadian Arctic depends on the wealth and uniqueness of the wildlife in the polar region. Two different forms of tourism based on Arctic wildlife can be distinguished: wildlife viewing and sport hunting. Both of these forms of tourism question the link between the different uses of the resource and the perceptions of wildlife. Based on an analysis of multiple information sources (literature review, newspaper analysis and semi-structured interviews), this article examines the emergence of wildlife as a tourism resource for Inuit communities and questions the issues linked to the emergence of this resource use. Using the example of polar bears, the article focuses on tourism dynamics. The article concludes that the polar bear sport hunting resource has evolved along with the changing environment. This tourism resource could be reinvented, with investments targeting other forms of tourism, such as wildlife viewing, which seems to better fit Westerners’ expectations, but is not necessarily a more environmentally friendly type of tourism.

Geoffrey Francis Hattersley-Smith (‘Geoff’), who died on 21 July 2012, served for many years as a polar field scientist, contributing substantially to glaciological and geological surveys in both north and south polar regions. In later life he undertook research in another discipline altogether – the sorting and cataloguing of polar place names – an achievement in scholarship for which all other polar researchers may be thankful.

The increasing rate of incidents involving vessels in the Southern Ocean (including vessels sinking) has highlighted the potential for substantial fuel spills into the Antarctic environment. An increasing number of tourist and fishing vessels, often without ice strengthened hulls, are penetrating farther into, and staying longer in, Antarctic waters, with a focus for destinations of wildlife concentrations. Based on a survey of national operators in the Antarctic, there is little preparation for an oil spill event that involves Antarctic wildlife. This is a recipe for a catastrophic spill event, with the potential for high numbers of oiled wildlife in a remote part of the world where there are major logistical constraints on the provision of equipment and skilled response personnel. Here we chronicle shipping incidents that have led to oil spills in the Southern Ocean, the current legislation and contingency plans currently in place by national Antarctic operators, and examine their preparedness and expertise for an oiled wildlife event response. It is clear that national, fishing and tourism operators are manifestly unprepared for an oiled wildlife event in the Southern Ocean. We identify five critical constraints to any response and provide recommendations that address these constraints.

This article takes a normative approach to explore what and how we might learn from existing indigenous governance arrangements in the Arctic and how they may contribute to the larger debates over Arctic governance and who decides. It begins with a brief exploration of the existing literature regarding co-management; particularly what some legal scholars have defined as post-Westphalian resource management as well as engaging ongoing discussions about co-management as it pertains to the Arctic. It then turns to the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC) as a case study and possible starting point for governing newly emerging resource management issues in the Arctic. Specifically, this article will look at how the governance framework of the AEWC might be applicable for the current governance discussions regarding Arctic offshore oil and gas development. Lastly, this paper will offer preliminary reflections as to how a post-sovereign resource management approach could contribute to the broader theoretical debates concerning who owns the Arctic and who decides. Specifically it offers one possible way to envisage the future of a strengthened Arctic Council operating in a world where states are not the only actors participating in the governance of the Arctic.

The methodology of socially-oriented observations (SOO) started to be developed within the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008 PPS Arctic project. The main objective of SOO is to increase knowledge and observation of changes in quality of life conditions and to reveal trends in human capital and capacities. SOO are needed also to assess and monitor trends in resilience and sustainability of coupled socio-ecological systems and to predict changes. Moreover they should help to identify and monitor the implementation of local plans and adaptation strategies that will stimulate human capital improvement and act not only as the agent of economic modernisation, but as important directions for building resilient socio-ecological systems. The first experiments to implement SOO methodology were carried out in the municipal regions of the Russian north in different biomes (from coastal tundra to southern taiga zone) of Murmansk, Arkhangelsk Oblast and the Republic of Komi. SOO approaches, based both on local people's perceptions and statistics, help to identify the main issues and targets for life quality, human capital and environment improvement and thus to distinguish the most important changes and trends for further monitoring. Key issues were identified in the state of human capital and quality of life conditions: depopulation, increasing unemployment, aging, declining physical and mental health, quality of education, loss of traditional knowledge, marginalisation etc. Human induced disturbances such as uncontrolled forests cuttings and poaching are increasing while observed changes in climate and biota have become additional factors influencing land use and overall sustainability. The main aim of this paper is to show how the methodology of SOO may help to delineate main thresholds arising within socio-ecological systems for their resilience assessment.

Few aspects of Canada's Arctic sovereignty claims have been more misunderstood than the sector theory, which many writers believe originated with and was put forward on Canada's behalf (whether officially or unofficially) by explorer Joseph Elzéar Bernier. However, several Canadian government officials in the 1920s were both shrewd and accurate in their assessment of Bernier's pretensions. This note focuses on the views of civil servant Oswald Sterling Finnie, as recorded in previously unexamined government documents. In the years following Bernier's retirement from government service in 1925, the explorer embarked on a campaign to win the place in history he felt he deserved, only to be thwarted by Finnie and his colleagues. The note also clarifies the differences between Bernier's 1907 and 1909 sector claims and the official sector claim made in 1925.

The Russian South Pole expedition carried out in 1819–1821 was an early milestone in the scientific exploration of the Antarctic. The expedition took place under the command of the Baltic German Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen. Bellingshausen came from the Island of Saaremaa in Estonia. The Russian empire, and followed by the Soviet Union, did not attach much importance to Bellingshausen's expedition. It was only after World War II as the question of the Antarctic received close attention that the Bellingshausen expedition received political significance in the Soviet Union. The fact that the expedition really took place was used by the Soviet Union to claim rights to the Antarctic and also to argue for its participation in Antarctic exploration (see Tammiksaar 2007; Bulkeley 2011). In the early stages of exploration of the continent, Estonians were given the opportunity to carry out investigations there. The first Estonian research programme in the Antarctic, on noctilucent clouds, was elaborated by the astronomer Charles Villmann. Altogether some tens of Estonians have visited the southern continent performing investigations in earth sciences, atmospheric physics, hydrology and ecology of surface waters and the human influence on them. They have also carried out isotope studies of the ice sheet to reconstruct environmental conditions in the past.

In the literature of the exploration of the Antarctic in the early 20th century, there are many references to ‘medical comforts’. While ‘medical comforts’ was sometimes used as a euphemism for alcoholic beverages, the term, which originated in the army, covered all foods and drinks used for the treatment and prevention of illness and during convalescence. This article describes the use of medical comforts during the Antarctic expeditions of the so called ‘heroic age’. Apart from alcohol, medical comforts included beef extracts, milk extracts and arrowroot. These products were extensively advertised to the medical and nursing professions and to the general public and the Antarctic connection was sometimes used in the advertising. The products were largely devoid of vitamins and their use may have contributed to some of the disease that occurred on these expeditions.

This article is dedicated to the aggravation of negative natural and anthropogenous changes in Central Siberia in the Yenisei River geo-system. These changes are probably the result of global warming and climate destabilisation combined with intensified destructive processes in the region.

The last decades were characterised by the following:

1. 1. Growth of mean annual temperatures and change of annual climate structure resulting in extreme weather and hydrologic situations;

2. 2. Large-scale degradation of insular permafrost with corresponding decrease of their water-cut;

3. 3. Dry thunderstorms, fires, forest disease outbreaks became more frequent and abundant in the large areas;

4. 4. Forage resources failures and game animals’ depletion in numbers became more frequent;

5. 5. Overgrowing of the Angara and the Yenisei Rivers. Significant drop of spawning sites’ reproductive functions;

6. 6. Northern borders of some wild populations’ habitats started moving further north;

7. 7. Aggravation of boat traffic conditions and traditional use of natural resources;

8. 8. Taiga lost its fire-suppression and chemical-protection functions almost completely;

9. 9. Some issues have emerged regarding protection of people and domestic animals against natural-endemic diseases as well as predators;

The artist Pavel Nikolayevich Mikhailov (1786–1840) took part in the Antarctic expedition of the Imperial Russian Navy commanded by Captain F.F. Bellingshausen from 1819 to 1821. The author was invited to view the collection of Mikhailov's work, from two expeditions, that is held at the Russian Museum, St Petersburg. The Bellingshausen pieces in the collection are described, and their relationships to the smaller collection of Mikhailov's work for the Bellingshausen expedition, held at the State Historical Museum in Moscow, to the lithographs in the Atlas volume of Bellingshausen's published narrative, and to the various versions of Mikhailov's images that have been published in the 20th and 21st centuries, are discussed.

On 12 January 1921 the British Imperial Antarctic Expedition 1920–1922 led by 27 year old Cambridge graduate John Lachlan Cope, arrived at Paradise Harbour situated west of Andvord Bay on the Danco Coast, Graham Land. The four-man party was landed by Norwegian whalers, on a small island with a promontory they named ‘Water-boat Point’ now Waterboat Point (64°49’S, 62°52’E), because of an abandoned water-boat there. Fortunately ready accommodation was available in the boat and to this were attached cases of provisions to form an improvised hut with an extension added before winter. Cope and Wilkins his deputy leader stayed just six weeks and after helping to build the hut, in effect abandoned the other two members of the expedition, Bagshawe and Lester. The two men voluntarily remained and in the belief that they would be paid, vigorously pursued a varied scientific programme. Although lacking essential items including certain scientific instruments, they were comparatively well off until relieved by Norwegian whalers in January 1922. The expedition that lasted one year and a day and was supported logistically by Norwegian whalers, became the smallest British expedition to overwinter in Antarctica and was the only expedition at that time. Bagshawe and Lester produced an impressive record of observations in meteorology, biology, oceanography, glaciology, botany and geology. In 1951 when Chile established Presidente González Videla Station, remains of the water-boat and hut were present, but today little evidence remains of the site destroyed by natural processes, human intervention and buried by guano. With exception of a few papers and chapters in books, Two men in the Antarctic (Bagshawe 1939) remains the definitive work on this generally forgotten expedition. For this paper primary resources have focused on original manuscripts. Although much material including financial records if indeed they existed, has been lost, surviving documents provide insights into the expedition. Reasons for the eventual loss of Bagshawe and Lester's field station are discussed.

In 1949 a reassessment of the Imperial Russian Navy's Antarctic expedition of 1819–1821 was promulgated in the Soviet Union. The contention was that Russian seamen had made the first discovery of the mainland of Antarctica, two or three days before the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula was sighted by a British expedition, under William Smith and Edward Bransfield, sent to take formal possession of the South Shetland Islands. The new Soviet line apparently required that an important passage in a report which Captain Bellingshausen had sent from Australia in 1820 should, as far as possible, be overlooked or downplayed. Nineteenth century editions of the report and its covering letter are translated, the contemporary ice vocabulary in which they were phrased is explained, and the practice of discounting parts of them in the past and continuing to ignore those passages today is discussed.

Living in close relationship with the Siberian environment, for several decades the Tungus (Evenk and Even peoples) have been noticing numerous changes in climate, flora and fauna. Based on fieldwork among reindeer herders, hunters and fishermen in Yakutia, the Amur region and Kamchatka, this paper explores how climate change is perceived, and how it causes economic, social and ritual changes. It questions the modifications of the economic and religious human-environment relationships through various aspects. It analyses the indigenous perception of a link between the environment and identity and the indigenous notion of adaptation and vulnerability. It also compares their adaptive strategies that either use old techniques, or trigger mutations. In this context, the notion of reciprocity seems to be disappearing and a new notion of time-space in managing the environment is appearing. This paper analyses the religious changes, such as the creation of new rituals and millenarian narratives or the rebirth of shamanistic legends.

At the start of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration there was great confusion concerning the cause of scurvy. It was known that it was related, in some way, to food but it was uncertain as to how, and there were two main theories. The first was that it was caused by a deficiency of fruit and vegetables and the other that it was caused by a toxic material in tinned foods. In addition, older theories that it was caused by dirt and damp still carried weight and Almroth Wright had proposed that scurvy was caused by too much acid in the blood. An additional confusion was that vitamin C deficiency was often combined with other vitamin deficiencies and so other diseases might be labelled as scurvy. The discovery of vitamins occurred over the same period but, as with all new scientific concepts, the knowledge that scurvy was caused by a vitamin deficiency took time to be universally accepted. It was generally accepted by about 1920, although some people did not accept it until vitamin C has been isolated in 1932.

Changes of the lipid composition (mainly of membrane lipids) in gills in response to various seawater salinities were studied in two groups of mussels Mytilus edulis L. from the White Sea, living under different environmental conditions (intertidal zone and artificial substrates used in aquaculture). Modifications in the lipid composition involved the basic indices characteristic of the physical state of biological membranes, and minor components of the lipid bilayer, which perform regulatory functions, indicating that the lipid metabolism of the bivalves has undergone acclimation transformations in response to salinity. It is demonstrated that the response to critical salinity (5 ppt) in membrane lipids was similar in the two investigated groups of mussels, whereas with salinities of 15, 35, and 45 ppt the pattern of fluctuations in the lipid composition depended on the initial habitat (intertidal zone or aquaculture).

During an intense period of only 14 months, from June 2010 to August 2011, six major cooperation agreements between oil companies were announced in Russia. Almost all of these partnerships involved offshore projects, with an international oil company as one of the partners and Rosneft as the other. The agreements were concentrated along Russia's Arctic petroleum frontier, and the three that survived the longest involved oil or gas extraction in the Arctic. This article analyses and compares the contents and contexts of the agreements, to ascertain what they have to tell about access for international companies to Russia's offshore petroleum resources and the influence of competing Russian political actors over the country's petroleum sector. The article argues that the new partnerships did represent an intention to open up the Russian continental shelf, and that the agreements were driven and shaped by a series of needs: to secure foreign capital and competence, to reduce exploration risk, to lobby for a better tax framework, to show the government that necessary action was being taken to launch exploration activities, to improve Rosneft's image abroad, and either to avert or prepare for future privatisation of state companies such as Rosneft.

A mystery surrounds the failure to appoint Professor J.B. Cragg of Durham University as biological supervisor to the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1958. In a recent note in this journal Dr Lance Tickell argues that Sir Raymond Priestley is unlikely to have been responsible. Cragg's approach was, however, closely followed by the present author between 1961 and 1966 in the programme based on Signy Island, South Orkney Islands.