Author: Ravi Darwin Sankar, Maribeth S Murray, Hajo Eicken, Peter Schlosser, and Jan René Larsen 

Abstract: The Arctic Observing Summit (AOS) fosters communication, international collaboration and coordination of long-term observations aimed at improving understanding of and response to system-scale Arctic change. It is a global forum for optimizing resource allocation, and minimizing gaps and duplication, through coordination of and exchange among researchers, federal/government agencies, Indigenous and northern peoples, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and others involved or interested in long-term observing activities. The AOS has fostered the establishment of thematic working groups, several of which continue their work beyond the scope of the summit. Most recently, this includes support of the Roadmap for Arctic Observing and Data Systems under the Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks initiative. The AOS has also served as a synthesis and communication mechanism into the Arctic Science Ministerial process, helping translate summit recommendations into specific actions at the national and international level. This presentation will summarize the outcomes of the five Summits to date and focus on the emerging challenges ahead including focusing on how sustained observations can contribute to well-being and better understanding of rapid Arctic change to build resilience and inform responses from the local to the global scale.

Authors: Sandra Starkweather, Jan René Larsen, Margaret Rudolf, Hajo Eicken, Michael J Karcher, Maureen Biermann, Craig Chythlook

Abstract: Arctic observing and data systems have been identified as critical infrastructures to support scientific understanding and decision-making from local to regional and global scales, yet there remain significant challenges to developing, integrating and sustaining the needed systems. These challenges arise from the complexity of coordination across many organizational centers of action, sparse deployment and telecommunications infrastructure and physical conditions of polar regions that constrain technology options. Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) was initiated to address the challenges related to coordination across a heterogeneous collection of national and organizational actors engaged in Arctic observing. Within this complex partnership setting, SAON recognizes the value of ‘polycentric’ governance models, which work to generate alignment around shared goals across many centers of action in non-hierarchal arrangements. Polycentric thinking has inspired SAON’s vision for a coordination and planning framework for developing observing and data system requirements and implementation strategies under its Roadmap for Arctic Observing and Data Systems (SAON-ROADS). ROADS’ guidance, among other things, calls for equitable partnering with Indigenous Peoples, a focus on shared benefits from observing and data systems, complementarity to existing regional to global observing efforts, and incremental approaches that are flexible and inclusive. The success of the SAON-ROADS vision is highly dependent on the engagement of SAON partners in the planning process. We will present a comparative analysis of how two independent projects, both self-identified as SAON-ROADS partners, are interpreting the ROADS guidance and initiating efforts under its framework. We will also illustrate how nationally coordinated actions within the US can serve as a model for supporting the ROADS process. Both will inform the alignment, engagement and capacity building actions needed to assure ROADS’ success.

Author: Alice C. Bradley and Martina Berrutti Bartesaghi

Abstract: The connections between organizations and entities involved in Arctic observing are not well documented, a lack of transparency that leads to confusion and likely inefficiencies. We are cataloguing the connections between 40 organizations involved in Arctic observing efforts related to food security in the Pacific sector. The goal is twofold: to create an information product to help people new to Arctic observing understand how different organizations operate in this space, and to use quantitative measures to evaluate the resiliency of the network to events like a gap in funding for an organization or the retirement of an individual. Information on how each organization connects to others is collected through a detailed survey or interview, including with which other organizations it shares information, funding, structural relationships, goals, activities, and/or people. A node and edge structure allows for quantitative measures of connectedness and resilience of the network as a whole, and of centrality for certain organizations. We find that a limited number of individuals have an outsized role in holding the network together, that certain activities (including the Arctic Observing Summit) serve as a hub for otherwise disconnected organizations, and that a number of organizations share goals but have no other functional relationship. This presentation will highlight lessons from this study and opportunities for more efficient collaboration within the Arctic observing community. 

Author: Hajo Eicken and the RNA CoObs Team

Abstract: Sustained observations of Arctic social-environmental systems provide local-to-global societal benefits. To realize these benefits and inform responses to rapid Arctic change, coordination and convergence of observing efforts is needed. Frameworks that promote interoperability, serve different user groups, provide shared societal benefits, and foster alignment of observing system components are of particular value. The Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) Roadmap for Arctic Observing and Data Systems (ROADS) is aiming to provide such a framework. The newly established Research Networking Activity for Coordinated Arctic Observations (RNA CoObs) supports ROADS by linking different activities and communities of practice. The Indigenous Food Security Working Group (FSWG) that emerged from the Arctic Observing Summit guides this effort, identifying benefits and essential variables that represent the holistic context of Indigenous food security and sovereignty. The FSWG established that sustained observations have to be relevant in a decision-making context, and need to be adaptive to address emerging events or threats. This guidance highlights a key challenge: Both observing location and scale need to fit the decision-making and research context. RNA CoObs addresses this requirement by 1) framing the broader questions and information needs, 2) developing a Shared Arctic Variable framework that helps channel observing activities into essential measurements, 3) capturing and sharing information about the distribution of observing assets to inform deployment of observing infrastructure and address Arctic Indigenous communities’ questions and concerns, 4) drawing on observing system simulations and inverse modeling in ways that incorporate benefits and retain the holistic food security perspective, and 5) capturing requirements that can inform the engineering design of observing systems and support interoperability of independent, aligned observing efforts. 

Author: Ellam Yua/the Food Sovereignty Working Group

Abstract: The meaning of food security for many Indigenous Peoples is holistic and interconnected across different systems (e.g., social, biological, chemical, physical, cultural, spiritual, health and well-being). The Inuit Circumpolar Council in Alaska identified drivers of food insecurity through Indigenous approaches and methodologies for Inuit in Alaska that other peoples/cultures also experience and relate with (ICC-Alaska 2015; Heeringa et al. 2019). The Food Security Working Group is a collaborative of Indigenous leaders and scholars brought together in late 2019/early 2020 as a part of the Arctic Observing Summit’s 2020 and the thematic working group to think about what an Indigenous led observing system should look like from a food security lens. This means the integration and use of Indigenous Knowledge and perspectives should be utilized during all stages of future collaborations and projects should guide and enhance western methodologies and project planning by non-Indigenous scientists and researchers. The utilization of methods like co-production of knowledge and community-based participatory research requires an approach that shifts away from traditional scientific extractive data collection to an equitable platform inclusive if Indigenous worldview, Indigenous Knowledge, evaluation, validation metrics, and both project planning and management changes that enrich scientific research. Food observation and food security research questions, information, and project planning is a collaboration between both Indigenous and western methodologies that focuses on observations that are meaningful and useful to both western science and the needs of the Indigenous communities. 

Author: Ellam Yua/the Food Sovereignty Working Group

Abstract: For observing networks and research projects to be inclusive to Indigenous Peoples, projects must consider Indigenous leadership and worldviews in the project planning, starting at the inception of the project idea. The Indigenous-led Food Security Working Group (FSWG) has continued to work on developing and refining methods and processes for improved collaboration with Arctic Indigenous communities. Bringing together Indigenous Knowledge and science will enhance the robustness of research. Additionally, true partnerships with Indigenous communities and Indigenous Knowledge holders require culturally inclusive approaches that stem from both Indigenous and scientific approaches. This requires a paradigm shift from typical scientific methods and practices to a convergence on an equitable platform that is inclusive of Indigenous worldviews, methods, evaluations and validation metrics, project management, and decision-making. This type of paradigm shift requires capacity building within the research community to understand Indigenous Peoples approaches, governance, histories, and processes; to be supportive of Indigenous Peoples and communities and their meaningful participation and leadership on projects. Indigenous ways of knowing come from relationships to lands and waters and is collective knowledge, making standard authorship where individuals are credited very complicated. True inclusivity means Indigenous individuals expressing themselves fully within the context of their own culture, crediting lands, waters, and collective knowledge. Cultural-inclusivity cannot happen only through a lens of science nor through methods that only select certain aspects that fit with science, e.g. trying to turn Indigenous Knowledge into data. It takes centering the community you are partnering with in their needs, research questions, and supporting the community’s work to make truly relevant, usable science. Centering communities also means prioritizing opportunities and resources for locals and waiting for the Tribe and leadership to be ready to participate. It will also take recognizing past and current colonization and inequities, which includes understanding the roles of researchers in the correct context and questioning underlying reasons and values research is completed through.