By Clive Tesar
One of the struggles at the heart of discussion of the Arctic is over who has the right be there, and to use arctic resources. Most of the governments that ring the Arctic Ocean are busily working on claims that will extend their rights to the sea bed. The question is, who else has the right to be there once all the claims are adjudicated? The UN convention on the law of the sea doesn’t settle the questions of shipping, or even all the questions about fishing. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: June 2011
Tracking megafauna in Iceland
The WWF Global Arctic Programme’s Head of Communications, Clive Tesar, attended the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences in Iceland in order to track trends and the latest information about the peoples of the Arctic, as they are so central to WWF’s conservation efforts in this area. While at the conference, he posted a series of blogs – this is the first.
By Clive Tesar
Locals say the snow should have disappeared from many of Iceland’s hills by now, but it has stayed on, disrupting local sheep pasturing patterns. Photo: WWF / Clive Tesar
Some people say WWF spends too much time talking about charismatic megafauna (a fancy way of saying interesting big animals). There is a reason we do that; if that’s what interests people then that’s how we start the conversation about conservation. In the Arctic, you’ll see us talking about walrus, about whales, and of course about polar bears. But I’m in Akureyri, Iceland right now to talk about another species of charismatic arctic megafauna – people. Continue reading