 |
Barriers to
sustainability: the Arctic in the global economy |
| |
The Arctic Council places emphasis
on environmental protection and sustainable development, especially
with regard to continuing the work begun by the AEPS. As the joint
communiqué of the Council puts it: |
| |
"Ministers viewed the establishment of this new intergovernmental
forum as an important milestone in their commitment to enhance
co-operation in the circumpolar North. The Council will provide
a mechanism for addressing the common concerns and challenges
faced by their governments and the people of the Arctic. To
this end, Ministers referred particularly to the protection
of the Arctic environment and sustainable development as a means
of improving the economic, social and cultural well-being in
the Arctic."
|
| |
Yet, how possible is this when development
projects abound which are not sensitive to environmental protection
needs and concerns for sustainability, nor indeed to the spirit
of Arctic environmental co-operation. Indeed, how can sustainability
be achieved in the Arctic regions when they are affected by the
ebb and flow of the global economy? Large-scale development continues
in the Arctic, even though the excitement over the AEPS and Arctic
Council may have obscured it for a while. But it is not only the
nation-states with Arctic territory that regard the circumpolar
north as increasingly important for resource development. The economic
future of the Arctic depends on global and economic processes, which
makes the Arctic regions vulnerable to the volatility of world markets.
|
| |
Countries such as Japan, Korea and
European Union member states constitute markets for valuable Arctic
resources, thus firmly placing the circumpolar north in the world
system. Densely populated parts of the world with no or few resources
of their own cannot sustain the material demands made by their growing
populations. They look to the northern regions for fisheries development,
hydrocarbons and minerals. Siberia, for example, has some 20% of
the world's forested area and about 40% of the world's coniferous
forests, and the Bering Sea is one of the richest fisheries on earth.
Fish stocks in the Bering Sea are threatened, however, by the commercial
nature of the fishing industry (the pollock fishery was closed in
1992 due to overfishing), and the United States is only one of many
nations contributing to the impoverishment of the Bering Sea ecosystem.
Overfishing by a large international fishing fleet is also having
an impact on the marine ecosystem in the European Arctic. There
is urgent need to agree upon management regulations, but it is notable
that fisheries do not seem to have provided a focus for Arctic environmental
co-operation. There is uncertainty over whether fisheries will be
a sustainable resource issue for the Arctic Council. And there is
also disagreement over the environmental impact of commercial fishing.
A report produced by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) points
to commercial fishing having the greatest impact on the marine ecosystem,
while a Nordic Council of Ministers report contradicts the EEA by
concluding that overfishing in European waters has not depleted
stocks. |
| |
The work begun by AEPS and its various
working groups, and now being continued by the Arctic Council, focuses
mainly on monitoring the effects of Arctic environmental problems,
seeks to produce state of the Arctic environment reports, feed this
information back to politicians, scientists and indigenous communities,
and make recommendations for action on environmental protection
and sustainable development by government ministers. While it is
widely recognised that many environmental problems facing the Arctic
originate from outside the region, Arctic environmental co-operation
seriously lacks a wider perspective on the regional and global dimensions
of environmental change and resource pressure. What is happening
in the rest of the globe is equally as important for the Arctic.
Arctic environmental discourse reproduces the image of the Arctic
as a natural laboratory for studying global environmental change
(a handy phrase to use when justifying grant applications to scientific
foundations and research councils), but fails to consider that it
is important to understand the relevance of poverty in developing
countries, deforestation in Nepal, floods in Bangladesh, or the
activities of transnational corporations in South East Asia for
the future of the Arctic, its peoples and its resources. |
| |
The major threats posed to the ecology
of the Arctic are primarily the result of social conditions arising
from human activity and interactions with the environment in local,
regional and global contexts. But the remit of the working groups
initiated under the AEPS has been to monitor the systemic and cumulative
effects of global processes on a specific region, albeit a geographically
vast one, rather than with seeking to understand the complex social,
economic and political processes which are the specific underlying
causes of the global dimensions of environmental change and resource
pressure. Future strategies for Arctic environmental protection
and sustainable development would benefit from moving beyond an
Arctic-centred perspective in an attempt to conceptualise economic,
social and environmental linkages between the Arctic and other regions
of the globe. |
| |
Those involved in agenda-setting for
Arctic environmental protection initiatives need to take into account
the processes of globalisation. As with practically every part of
the world, social, economic and political relationships in the Arctic
have become truly globalised. In the modern Arctic virtually every
aspect of life is influenced and shaped by events, trends, decisions
and activities happening elsewhere. Just a glimpse of the well-stocked
shelves of a Fairbanks supermarket, or drinking a cup of coffee
with seal hunters on the sea ice in northern Greenland (whose wives
prepare sealskins which will ultimately be exported to Japan) is
enough to show how Arctic residents are very much a part of a global
network of production and exchange. As the Arctic is inextricably
linked to the global system, in complex cultural, ideological, economic
and political ways there is a need to understand the process of
globalisation and such issues as population, production, technological
change, consumption and lifestyles in global perspective. A growing
population places considerable demand on resources and world production
is increasing to keep up with demand for consumption. This, inevitably,
leads to the depletion of natural resources such as coal, oil, gas
and minerals and contributes to the emission of greenhouse gases
such as carbon dioxide, and to habitat loss and the extinction of
flora and fauna. |
| |
Pressure is placed on the environment
not only by countries of the developed world, driven by the desire
for economic progress and the maintenance of affluent lifestyles
and vibrant economies (for example Japanese industry is depleting
the forests of Sarawak and Sabah), but also by developing countries.
One legacy of colonialism has been the creation and shaping of forms
of society which now not only have to adjust to post-colonial systems
but are following the same trajectory of economic development as
developed countries. Many of these developing countries have to
find ways of broadening their economic base. Industrial development
means more burning of fossil fuels and increased emissions of carbon
dioxide. And not only do developing countries need to feed their
growing populations, they also have to pay off massive international
debts, which accounts in part for deforestation (such as in the
Amazon). The growth of urban areas in the developing world is also
placing the environment under greater strain. Although the majority
of the population of industrialised countries live in urban areas,
Africa has the fastest urban population growth and by the first
few decades of the twenty-first century half the world's population
will probably be found in South and South East Asia. Most people
in these regions will be living in cities which cannot produce what
they need to sustain themselves. Resources from rural areas, the
oceans and regions such as the Arctic will be vital to an increasingly
urbanised world. |
| |
The future of the Arctic regions may
be linked to other, non-Arctic regional social, political and economic
interests. In The Age of the Arctic (1989) Osherenko and Young point
of the importance of seeing the future of development in the Arctic
in terms of transnational connections rather than the classic model
of core-periphery relations developed under conditions of internal
colonialism. As they put it: |
| |
"[...] foreign investors can promise capital and advanced
technologies for Arctic development as well as providing markets
for which there is no local demand. With few exceptions...this
has not resulted in colonial arrangements or even neo-colonial
relationships. But direct investment on the part of foreign
corporations or governments is still growing rapidly and producing
a complex network of transnational connections in the Arctic."
|
| |
Fisheries represent a good example
of how transnational practices impact upon local livelihoods and
often prevent sustainability. Communities dependent on living marine
resources in the Arctic, as in any other region of the world, are
subject to the effects and influences of globalisation, and these
are increasingly felt in all aspects of social, economic and cultural
life. It is important to view many problems in coastal communities
in relation to the global restructuring of fisheries, the balance
of competition between different species and different fishing areas,
the internationalisation of the sourcing of supplies for processing
plants and retail markets and the redistribution of wealth from
traditional actors, such as local fishers and local processors,
to powerful global players in the form of transnational corporations.
One of the major implications of globalisation for fisheries can
be seen most markedly in resource management models and in the transition
from fish as common resources to private property. In this way,
fisheries are being transformed from industries or ways of life
subject to the control and regulation of local, regional and national
authorities to a global enterprise dominated by a handful of transnational
companies. |
| |
The interrelations between international
trade, the environment and sustainable development are poorly understood
and global market trends influence how far the sustainable uses
of living marine resources is actually possible. At present, fisheries
subsidies constitute one of the key barriers to sustainable fisheries,
distorting trade and generating fisheries overcapacity -- thus leading
to overfishing and the decline of fish stocks. The ability to achieve
sustainable development is dependent on nations phasing out fisheries
subsidies, and it is notable that Iceland has taken a lead in this
regard. Efforts to encourage fishermen to shift their attention
away from declining stocks and concentrate on sustainable harvesting
techniques is happening through international co-operation on the
formulation of criteria for the eco-labelling of fish products.
While the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is involved in
this work, large corporations and NGOs have also made significant
progress in aiming to secure good environmental practice through
a system of eco-labelling. A good example of this is the Marine
Stewardship Council (MSC), an initiative of Unilever and the Worldwide
Fund for Nature. The MSC has imposed its own global standards for
sustainable fishing and is working to create new market incentives
by rewarding good fishing practices. In itself this can pose a threat
to the viability of coastal communities and local industries based
on marine produce as international trade and consumer action places
increasing attention on the safety and security of marine produce
for human food. Although aiming to ensure good sustainable practice,
eco-labelling may actually mask trade distortions -- the effectiveness
of such a system will only be known once research on local coastal
economies and fishing practices has been contextualised with reference
to the internationalisation of production and exchange and the activities
and influences of transnational corporations involved in fisheries.
|
| |
Coastal communities dependent on the
harvesting of living marine resources are put at risk by the interplay
of global forces, by international trade, the restructuring of the
fishing industry, the broadening scope of fisheries policy and by
environmentalist action. But they are also being challenged from
within by changing community dynamics, the declining importance
of kinship and family for the social organisation of fishing, different
local responses to social change, and by divisions within and between
local and national fishermen's organisations. A characteristic of
coastal communities in Greenland, Iceland and northern Norway is
that, traditionally, local fisheries have been small-scale and family
based, having developed their own distinctive forms of social organisation
centred on close-knit kin groups, from which members of fishing
crews were recruited. The contemporary reality for small communities
in many coastal regions is that people rely increasingly on occupational
associations in addition to, or in place of, kinship relations.
As is already the case in many North Atlantic fishing societies,
in occupational terms, spatially-defined communities of common interest
expressed through close kinship relations are being replaced by
dispersed networks based on occupational associations and formal
contractual relations. In an increasingly technical and modernising
Greenland, for example, hunting is becoming more 'commercialised',
while fishing has become more technologically complex. Fishermen
are investing in bigger and increasingly sophisticated boats to
fish the waters in different parts of Greenland. While, in some
cases, male kinsmen such as brothers are investing in these vessels
together, crew members are not always kin, but well-qualified non-kin
who receive wages rather than shares in the profits of the catch.
|
| |
Furthermore, the sustainable uses
of living marine resources and the viability of local livelihoods
are threatened by the transformation of fish, seals and whales from
resources which are subject to common use rights to privately owned,
divisible commodities subject to rational management regimes. In
Iceland the principle of common use rights has been applied to living
marine resources throughout the country's history, whereas in Greenland
it has traditionally been the case that no one owns animals. In
both cases, as is usual elsewhere in North Atlantic fishing societies,
a fish or a sea mammal does not become a commodity subject to individual
ownership until it has actually been caught and transformed into
private property. Even then, complex local rules, beliefs and cultural
practices counter the exclusive sense of individual ownership. In
Greenland, the sharing and free distribution of meat from seals
and other marine mammals is an acknowledgement of the debt people
owe to the animal in coming to the hunter and a denial that any
one person has exclusive claims to ownership of the animals that
are caught. In this regard, the development of markets for Greenlandic
fish and meat products, while providing a source of income for local
hunters and fishermen, has provoked debates within communities about
the appropriate uses of living marine resources. For many people,
seal hunting and whaling encapsulates relations which are posed
in ideological, natural and cultural terms, and the sharing and
distribution of meat is central to the Greenlandic subsistence culture
and local identity -- the sharing and distribution of meat both
expresses and sustains social relationships. In many parts of Greenland
today, although it is still the case that much of the meat from
sea mammals is shared out to members of the hunter's immediate and
extended family, increasingly hunters and fishermen are selling
part of their subsistence catch to the processing plants now found
in most villages, for the reasons outlined earlier. When hunting
is carried out to satisfy market demands beyond the local community
and regional economy, there is a feeling that the customary ideology
of subsistence, with its emphasis on kinship, community, sharing
and reciprocity, is disrupted and irrevocably altered. |
| |
The changing nature of political and
cultural understandings that shape the use of the Arctic, the consequences
of global change and resource pressure, and the conflicting political,
cultural and aesthetic values concerning its future make a theoretical
rethinking of the Arctic in geopolitical terms necessary. Recent
geographical and political perspectives on how the Arctic regions
are changing under geopolitical, economic and cultural stress have
made some progress in this respect. As we enter the twenty-first
century, research in both the natural and social sciences in the
Arctic will be valued increasingly for the contribution it makes
to how we can understand global issues. But it is equally important
to consider global processes and their impact if we are to understand
the contemporary Arctic and its place in the global system. |
|
Previous
Chapter 