Environmental security is seen as increasingly important because of the impact of climate change. Unpredictable weather, melting permafrost, changing marine and terrestrial environments and food species, and a host of other challenges have emerged for Arctic communities.

Correspondingly, new areas of research such as search and rescue response, resilience, domaine awareness, ecosystem vulnerability, have developed, while traditional knowledge and IQ solutions are increasingly incorporated within research methodologies.  Communities themselves have created responses to, or organized  programs to identify changing local conditions. 

In this seminar we want to look at environmental security from a broad perspective, but also from the point of view of how communities have built expertise to identify and respond to such challenges. We examine both North American and Nordic situations. How has environmental security been conceptualized  and developed as an academic field? What are the deficiencies in the academic and securitization narratives? How have communities, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, responded to the need for local expertise? What steps should they consider in the future? 

Speakers

Douglas Causey is a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Alaska, Anchorage and an Associate at the Belfer Center’s Arctic Initiative. Dr. Causey served as the Principal Investigator for the Department of Homeland Security’s Arctic Domain Awareness Centre and was a Senior Fellow of the Belfer Center and Senior Biologist at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. From 1995-2000, he represented the National Science Foundation (NSF) at organizational meetings leading to the formation of the Arctic Council and was NSF’s Arctic Representative during the Gore-Chernomyrdin negotiations on US-Russian Science Policy. His interests are in the fields of environmental health risk assessment, management and communication in cooperation with Indigenous populations. A particular focus of the work is on communities living in rapidly changing natural environments such as coastal and Arctic ecosystems. 

Berit Kristoffersen is an Associate Professor at UiT – the Arctic University of Norway, affiliated with the interdisciplinary Arctic Centre for Sustainable Energy (ARC) and the Department of Social Sciences. Her research examines ocean resource governance and energy systems, with particular attention to the geo/political dimensions of energy transitions. She is involved in a number of intern/national community energy projects, including CASES (co-PI for Norway, focus on Finnmark) and RENEW (PI, connected to Smart Senja).

Bridget Larocque, School for the Study of Canada, Trent University. Bridget Larocque is an Indigenous resident of the Northwest Territories, has extensive knowledge of the Northwest Territories and the broader circumpolar worlds. She has served as a policy advisor and researcher with the Arctic Athabaskan Council (ACC) and was executive director of Gwich’in Council International (GCI) from 2007- 12.  Her other recent work includes managing self-government negotiations for the Gwich’in Tribal Council, serving as land claim implementation coordinator and project analyst with Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada and as assistant negotiator with Executive and Indigenous Affairs in the Government of the Northwest Territories, and as Executive Director of the Fort Norman Community in the Northwest Territories.

Chris Furgal, is a professor in the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies, Trent University. His interests are in the fields of environmental health risk assessment, management and communication in cooperation with Indigenous populations. A particular focus of the work is on communities living in rapidly changing natural environments such as coastal and Arctic ecosystems

Laura Junka-Aikio

Professor, Northern Politics and Government.
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland

Zoom link to the conversation: 

https://eoppimispalvelut.zoom.us/j/69322492089?pwd=WHdKS1JFa3dkQUNRempQclNEdjE2Zz09

Meeting ID: 693 2249 2089
Passcode: 338335

For more information:

Laura Junka-Aikio, University of Lapland
Laura.junka-aikio(at)ulapland.fi

Heather Nicol, Trent University
heathernicol(at)trentu.ca