The network includes Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Finnish Ministry of Environment, Arctic Centre in Rovaniemi and Ministry of Natural Resources of Arkhangelsk region. International Barents Secretariat is following the project’s implementation, assist in coordination between Nordic and Russian partners and contribute to information dissemination.

Cooperation on the Climate Change issues is aimed at development of regional climate strategies for the Russian part of the Barents region, which will contribute to reducing of GHG emissions that accelerate climate change. More about NCM arctic cooperation programme here.

The capacity of protected areas in the Barents Region to conserve biodiversity threatened by climate change project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of presently protected areas in the Barents Region in conserving species and ecosystems in a future situation with a warmer climate. The expected outputs are:

  1. An insight in how future climate change (2080) may affect ecosystems and biodiversity in the Barents region
  2. A guidance for nature conservation managers concerning the best strategies to respond to future climate change in the Barents region
  3. A number of mitigation measures to ensure that protected areas are able to retain their rich biodiversity in a future, warmer, climate
  4. A number of assessments for IUCN red-listed species
  5. An estimate of the “cost” of not acting to fulfill the requirements of the Convention of Biological Diversity, i.e. avoiding further losses of species.

The project is coordinated by the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science at the Umeå University. More information is available on the project website.

Trilateral cooperation on Environmental Challenges in the Joint Border Area project aims to create assessment tools for detecting the effects of harmful substances, water regulation and climate change in the Barents region. The main activities in the project are:

  1. To assess of the observed climate changes and to model the emissions, dispersion and deposition of airborne pollutants in the border region
  2. To compare national and international classifications of ecological state for more reliable evaluation work
  3. To evaluate influence of climate variation and pollution in small rivers indicated by freshwater pearl mussels
  4. To evaluate the effects of hazardous substances, water level regulation and climate change on the ecological condition on the Pasvik River System and Inari Lake.
  5. To evaluate and develop the cost-effective lake monitoring network on the Pasvik River basin
  6. To disseminate information about the project and it's activities and results for public and decision makers

The project is coordinated by the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for Lapland. Contact: Ms. Ilona Grekelä (ilona.grekela@ely-keskus.fi).

Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems of Northwest Eurasia project reconstructed the environmental histories of integrated social-ecological systems in Fennoscandia and Yamal, West Siberia that have been characterized by both climate change and the constant adaptation of people and their reindeer herds. The project linked indigenous (Sámi and Nenets) oral histories with archaeology, palaeoecology and modern ecological and climate studies for a holistic explanation of stable states. The project (2012-2016) was coordinated by the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland. Read more.