9 results
13 - Coping with a Warming Winter Climate in Arctic Russia: Patterns of Extreme Weather Affecting Nenets Reindeer Nomadism
- from Part III - Global Change and Indigenous Responses
- Edited by Marie Roué, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris, Douglas Nakashima, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), France, Igor Krupnik, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
-
- Book:
- Resilience through Knowledge Co-Production
- Published online:
- 02 June 2022
- Print publication:
- 30 June 2022, pp 217-232
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Assessing potential drivers of and linkages between sea ice retreat or thinning across Arctic Russia and maintenance of the ancient and unique social-ecological systems of the Indigenous reindeer-herding Nenets is a pressing task. Sea ice loss is accelerating in the Barents and Kara Seas in the northwestern region of Arctic Russia. Warming summer air temperatures in recent decades have been linked to more frequent and sustained summer high-pressure systems over West Siberia but not to sea ice retreat. At the same time, autumn/winter rain-on-snow events across the region have become more frequent and intense. Two major rain-on-snow events during November 2006 and 2013 led to massive winter reindeer mortality episodes on Yamal Peninsula, where tundra nomadism remains a vitally important livelihood activity for the indigenous Nenets.
Here we review evidence for autumn atmospheric warming and precipitation increases over Arctic coastal lands in proximity to Barents and Kara sea ice loss. Realizing mutual coexistence of tundra nomadism within the Arctic’s largest natural gas complex under a warming climate will require ready access to and careful interpretation of real-time meteorological and sea-ice data and modelling, as well as meaningful consultation with local communities.
Changes in mountain birch forests and reindeer management: Comparing different knowledge systems in Sápmi, northern Fennoscandia
- Bruce C. Forbes, Minna T. Turunen, Päivi Soppela, Sirpa Rasmus, Terhi Vuojala-Magga, Heidi Kitti
-
- Journal:
- Polar Record / Volume 55 / Issue 6 / November 2019
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 07 February 2020, pp. 507-521
-
- Article
-
- You have access Access
- Open access
- HTML
- Export citation
-
Mountain birch forests in the northern areas of Sápmi, the Saami homeland, serve as pastures for semi-domesticated reindeer. Recent reindeer management of the area has, to date, proceeded with little involvement of reindeer herders or their knowledge. To get more in-depth understanding of recent changes, we present together herders’ knowledge and scientific knowledge concerning the impacts of herbivory and climate change on mountain birch forests in three Saami communities in Norway and in Finland. Most of the herders interviewed reported changes in weather during the preceding decades. Herders agreed that the canopy and understorey of mountain birch forests have changed. The observed transformations in the quality of pastures have increased the financial costs of reindeer husbandry. Our study demonstrates that herders have practical knowledge of the present state and recent changes of birch forests, and of the responses of reindeer caused by these. This knowledge generally coincides with scientific knowledge. We call for better integration of knowledge systems and a better protocol for co-production of knowledge as it relates to more adaptive future reindeer management regimes. Such integration will facilitate understanding of cultural adaptation within rapidly changing social-ecological systems in which sustainable reindeer husbandry continues to be an important livelihood.
Contributors
-
- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
-
- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
- Published online:
- 05 August 2015
- Print publication:
- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
TRANSFORMATION OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT IN WESTERN SØRKAPP LAND (SPITSBERGEN) SINCE THE 1980s. Ziaja Wiesław (editor). 2012. New York: Jagiellonian/Columbia University Press. 95 p, softcover, illustrated. ISBN 978-8-323332-312. £34.50.
- Bruce C. Forbes
-
- Journal:
- Polar Record / Volume 51 / Issue 3 / May 2015
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 02 February 2015, pp. 335-336
-
- Article
-
- You have access Access
- HTML
- Export citation
Contributors
-
- By Janine B. Adams, Kirsten B. Barnes, Guy C. Bate, Greg A. Botha, Meyrick B. Bowker, Sarah J. Bownes, Nicola K. Carrasco, Clinton P. Chrystal, Robynne A. Chrystal, Xander Combrink, Allan D. Connell, Digby P. Cyrus, Colleen T. Downs, William N. Ellery, Anthony T. Forbes, Nicolette T. Forbes, Caroline Fox, Nuette Gordon, Michael C. Grenfell, Suzanne E. Grenfell, Sylvi Haldorsen, Marc S. Humphries, Hendrik L. Jerling, Bruce E. Kelbe, C. Fiona MacKay, Christopher M. Maine, Andrew Z. Maro, Andrew A. Mather, Nelson A. F. Miranda, David G. Muir, Holly A. Nel, Sibulele Nondoda, Renzo Perissinotto, Deena Pillay, Naomi Porat, Roger N. Porter, Sean N. Porter, Justin J. Pringle, Ursula M. Scharler, Derek D. Stretch, Ricky H. Taylor, Jane Turpie, Jonathan K. Warner, Alan K. Whitfield
- Edited by Renzo Perissinotto, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Derek D. Stretch, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Ricky H. Taylor
-
- Book:
- Ecology and Conservation of Estuarine Ecosystems
- Published online:
- 05 April 2013
- Print publication:
- 16 May 2013, pp xiii-xvi
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Reindeer herding and petroleum development on Poluostrov Yamal: sustainable or mutually incompatible uses?
- Bruce C. Forbes
-
- Journal:
- Polar Record / Volume 35 / Issue 195 / October 1999
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 27 October 2009, pp. 317-322
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
The Yamal Nenets have exploited reindeer via hunting and/or husbandry in northwest Siberia for several hundred years, although wild reindeer have been virtually absent on Poluostrov Yamal since the early 1900s. Nonetheless, the region retains large populations of wild animals, indicating that nomadic pastoralists, semi-domestic animals, and wildlife were not competing vigorously for resources or space prior to industrialization. Natural-gas development is a relative newcomer to the region, but has already had a significant impact on the bio-physical and socioeconomic environments. The withdrawal of lands for industrial infrastructure, in addition to direct and cumulative impacts from three decades of exploration, has led to a serious decline in the quantity and quality of the remaining tundrasuitable for reindeer pasture.
Available records indicate that some preferred fur-bearing game species have been significantly reduced in recent years, primarily by non-natives. At the same time, it appears that extensive grazing by the reindeer themselves is having an overall negative effect on the area's pastures. Specifically, reindeer grazing is resulting in the thinning of the organic layer on well-drained ground and the exposure of fine-grained sands. The surfaces of these patches are highly erodable and unstable, therefore spreading easily as long as they remain unvegetated. The significant expansion of such areas is a genuine threat as long as, first, industrial development continues to degrade the land, and, second, the numbers of reindeer remain at current levels or increase.
‘Global Change and Arctic Terrestrial Ecosystems’: an International Conference Sponsored by the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, held in Oppdal, Norway, during 21–26 August 1993
- Bruce C. Forbes
-
- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 20 / Issue 4 / Winter 1993
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 24 August 2009, p. 372
-
- Article
- Export citation
Tundra Disturbance Studies, III: Short-term Effects of Aeolian Sand and Dust, Yamal Region, Northwest Siberia
- Bruce C. Forbes
-
- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 22 / Issue 4 / Winter 1995
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 24 August 2009, pp. 335-344
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
This paper describes the short-term responses of tundra vegetation and soils to aeolian sand and dust emanating from anthropogenically-bared surfaces in the low-arctic region of northwestern Siberia. Such surfaces, including roads and quarries, are increasing substantially each year as the region undergoes massive gas- and oil-producing development. Data are presented which emphasize the ‘cumulative’ impacts of corridor construction, namely those effects which are measurable laterally, at some distance from the actual surfaces of roads and quarries, four years after their creation. In particular, changes in plant communities are documented, in addition to the chemistry and macronutrient status of mineral soils and dominant vascular plants and mosses, respectively, as affected by road-dust.
Dramatic changes in plant community composition and cover were evident up to 200 m downwind from a ‘typical’ sand quarry. Although a few species appeared to respond favourably to rapid sand deposition, the great majority that were beset with it have declined in status or disappeared altogether. The exceptions were those growth-forms having the ability to keep perennating buds at or above the surface of the deepening sand (e.g. Betula nana, Salix spp., and Polytrichum spp.). The most pronounced decreases recorded were among lichens, hepatics, Sphagnum spp., and pleurocarpous mosses. The decline in Sphagnum spp., which dominate the moss layer and contribute much of the hummock-hollow microtopography, is already having a profound impact on community structure by virtually eliminating surface heterogeneity.
Tundra Disturbance Studies, I:* Long-term Effects of Vehicles on Species Richness and Biomass
- Bruce C. Forbes
-
- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 19 / Issue 1 / Spring 1992
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 24 August 2009, pp. 48-58
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
This paper describes up to two decades of unassisted plant recovery from uncontrolled tracked-vehicle disturbance within tundra meadows on two physiographically distinct high-arctic coastal lowlands. Data are presented which emphasize the status of species-richness and above-ground vascular biomass. Although they exhibit similar vascular floristics, the undisturbed vegetation communities of the two sites differ greatly in terms of the abundance of dominant species. In particular, Salix spp. characterize the larger, more mesic hummocks of the Baffin Island site, while Cyperaceae characterize the more level and generally wetter meadows on Devon Island. Despite these differences, both vascular and cryptogamic species-richness are consistently reduced under a variety of low-intensity disturbance regimes in different vegetation-types. In many cases these reductions are significant. In addition, total vascular biomass is significantly reduced in 88% of all stands. Reductions are most severe among woody species and, in cases where the biomass of monocotyledons was increased, these increases were more than offset by the losses among dicotyledons. This is contrary to the situation in mesic low-arctic meadows, where significant biomass increases among graminoids have more than offset losses among dicotyledons after less than 8 growing-seasons.
The literature of mechanical disturbance in the high-arctic is briefly reviewed, and it is noted that few long-term data are available, there being virtually none which address either cryptogamic species-richness or vascular biomass. The data presented here reaffirm previous short-term findings that lateral reinvasion by rhizomatous graminoids is slower than in the low-arctic. In addition, it has been determined that even after 18–20 years, seedling establishment by dicotyledons is virtually lacking in multi-pass tracks, and is limited to only the driest microsites (hummock tops and sides) in single-pass tracks. The few colonists are mostly slow-growing, woody species and are not likely to recover to predisturbance levels of biomass in mesic sites in the foreseeable future.
The prospect for a natural return to predisturbance levels of species-richness among cryptogams is equally unlikely, as the microhabitats in which many of them were found are often significantly reduced in extent or are lacking altogether. In some cases, ruderal bryophytes that are not found in the undisturbed formation have colonized the disturbed substrates, that are apparently not being invaded by the original species — further exacerbating natural restoration.
At present, most of these impacts occur on a limited spatial scale, although cumulative impacts were also documented. However, even small patches recover quite slowly and with fewer species than were originally present. Bared surfaces, or strips, if larger than about 1 m across are, typically, invaded from the edges inwards, few types other than ruderal grasses (e.g. species of Phippsia and Alopecurus not found in the undisturbed formation) being able to colonize the centre. Only the wettest meadows, which are naturally poor in species, approach or match former levels of species-richness and vascular biomass.
Given that these impacts are of limited extent and relatively low intensity, by comparison with large-scale resource exploration and minerals' extraction, the findings indicate that the meadows of the high-arctic need to be considered separately from their low-arctic counterparts when planning for even the most mitigative developments. Many of Canada's high-arctic lowlands provide important seasonal or year-around habitats for the region's terrestrial herbivores, yet only one has received any legislative protection. As pressure continues to build-up for increased access to the region for purposes of resource exploitation (Hazell, 1991), wilderness recreation (MacLachlan, 1988), and military sovereignty (Hazell, 1991), it is worth considering the ability of the more productive components of these ecosystems to recover from even a fraction of the impacts which, unfortunately, we may expect them to incur.