Climate change and biodiversity in the Arctic—Nordic perspectives

Abstract

This paper is based upon a presentation given on United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) World Environment Day, 5 June 2007, as part of the Nordic Perspectives session of the climate change conference Melting Ice—A Hot Topic? The broad aims of this paper are to define biodiversity and ecosystem services, to set the biodiversity of the Arctic terrestrial realm into its global context, and, through the use of case studies, to illustrate how environmental change can influence biodiversity and ecosystems, and to explore what the implications of these changes might be. A comprehensive treatment of the topic is well beyond the scope of both the presentation and this paper, but the reader is directed to the CAFF (2001) and ACIA (2005) reports for reviews and synthesis.