International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

3.10 Human-Based Observing Systems
Lead Authors:
Grete Hovelsrud, Igor Krupnik and Jeremy White
Introduction
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report (ACIA)
was the first seminal scientific overview of the Arctic
environment to include indigenous knowledge and
a discussion of its relationship to environmental
research and management (ACIA, 2005). The report
identified five key areas in which indigenous
knowledge and observations have proven particularly
illuminating about climate change research. These are:
(1) changes in weather, seasons, wind, etc.; (2) sea ice;
(3) permafrost and coastal erosion; (4) marine life; and
(5) land-based animals, birds, insects and vegetation
(Huntington and Fox, 2005). At the same time, the
ACIA report noted the lack of integration or linking
of indigenous and scientific observations of climate
change and the interpretation of these observations.
It cited a lack of trust between the indigenous and
scientific communities, which ultimately determines
how indigenous data and observations can best be
incorporated into scientific systems of knowledge
acquisition and interpretation (Huntington and Fox,
2005). Nonetheless, the ACIA team viewed further
extensions of collaborative research as the most
promising model and recommended involving
indigenous communities in research design and
setting the research agenda, to ensure that the polar
science is relevant locally.
That recommendation was also reflected in the
Framework document produced by the IPY Planning
Group roughly at the same time (Rapley et al., 2004). The
‘framework’ science plan for IPY 2007–2008 advanced
“six interdisciplinary observational strategies” for IPY,
including one focused on observations in human-
and community-based developments, in order to
“investigate crucial facets of the human dimension
of the polar regions, which will lead to the creation of
PA R T T H R E E : I PY OBSERVING SYS T E M S , T H E I R L E G AC Y A N D DATA M A N AG E M E N T
Contributing Authors:
Winfried Dallmann, Shari Gearheard, Victoria Gofman, Gary Kofinas, Yulian
Konstantinov, Svein Mathiesen and Anders Oskal
Reviewers:
Elena Andreeva, Lawrence Hamilton and David Hik
datasets on the changing conditions of circumpolar
human societies” (Rapley et al., 2004: 7). This emerging
focus on human- and community-based observations
was further strengthened in later IPY documents and
science projects (Allison et al., 2007; Hovelsrud and
Krupnik, 2006; Krupnik and Hovelsrud, 2009). Two
scientists working with indigenous communities
on environmental monitoring (Lene Kielsen Holm
from Nuuk, Greenland and Tatyana Vlassova from
Moscow, Russia) served on the IPY Subcommittee on
Observations. 1
IPY 2007–2008 has engaged an unprecedented
number of Arctic residents in its many projects
through “research planning, observation, processing
and interpretation of the various data sets created”
(Allison et al., 2007). In the special section of the
final IPY Science Outline titled “Integration of the
Knowledge and Observations of Polar Residents,”
local communities were recognized to be “integral”
and “vital” to the IPY data collection, monitoring, data
analyses and data management processes, particularly
in the social, physical and biological disciplines. Such
engagement of polar residents was anticipated to play
a dual role in the IPY efforts. First, it was viewed as an
integral part of many science-driven observational
projects that involved local communities and their
knowledge; that is, observations and interpretations
of the changing polar environment. This referred
primarily to social and human-oriented studies but
also, increasingly, to projects undertaken by scientists
in physical and biological disciplines, like the research
in sea ice dynamics, climate variability, marine and
terrestrial ecosystem health, and environmental
change. Second, and at least as important to the IPY
2007–2008 agenda, were the projects initiated by
o b s e r v I n g s Y s t e m s a n d d a t a m a n a g e m e n t 435