A dead sperm whale on the Sámi coast, Norway, 2007
Released today, “Biodiversity and ecosystem services in Nordic coastal ecosystems” Report has been in the making for several years. It implements the Intergovermental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services – IPBES approach for the Swedish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Finnish, Greenlandic, Sámi and Danish coastal regions. The report is in two parts – Volume 1: The general overview and Volume 2: The geographical case studies. Both reports cover at length several Snowchange operations, including Puruvesi winter seiners, Skolt Sámi co-management in Näätämö, Icelandic seal hunters, gendered landscapes of the Icelandic women and Kvarken sealers to name a few examples.
In short, reports describes the status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Nordic region, the drivers and pressures affecting them, interactions and effects on people and society, and options for governance.
Juha and Risto, restoring Vainosjoki in Skolt Saami area.
This study has been inspired by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES). It departs from case studies (Volume 2, the geographical case studies) from ten geographical areas in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) and the autonomous areas of Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland. The aim was to describe status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Nordic region, including the drivers and pressures affecting these ecosystems, the effects on people and society and options for governance.
The Nordic study is structured as closely as possible to the framework for the regional assessments currently being finalized within IPBES. The report highlights environmental differences and similarities in the Nordic coastal areas, like the inhabitants´ relation to nature and the environment as well as similarities in social and policy instruments between the Nordic countries. This study provides background material for decision-making and it is shown that Nordic cooperation is of great importance for sustainable coastal management and should be strengthened in future work.