10%

Minimizing

impacts of change on Indigenous ways of life

By Arctic Beringia

February 9^th, 2017

Commercial shipping in Arctic Beringia

Over the last few decades, arctic waters have become increasingly ice-free during the summer and fall. The lengthening of the open-water season has led to new industrial developments, including oil and gas activities with associated maritime support, and a rising number of large maritime vessels transiting either the Northern Sea Route over the Russian Arctic from Europe, or the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic to the Atlantic. Even cruise tourism has entered these waters in earnest. In 2016, the Crystal Serenity transited the Northwest Passage with over 900 passengers, and is already fully booked for 2017! Whichever route is being used by these large vessels, the only gateway to the Pacific is through the Bering Strait—an important migratory pathway for marine mammals.

In spring and fall, over 17,000 bowhead whales and some 150,000 walruses (the vast majority of most species) migrate through this narrow strait along with a host of other seals and smaller whales and birds. In addition to the risk of ship strikes, is the worry of large oil spills to which there is little capacity to respond, large vessels also emit low-frequency noises that can disrupt important behavioral functions for whales, potentially impair their ability to communicate and navigate, and displace them away from the villages that have relied on them for food and cultural security for millennia. Our work in Bering Strait is paralleled by work in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region where bowhead whales fatten during summer in and around the entrance to the Northwest Passage.

The Arctic Beringia Program is addressing risks presented by vessel traffic to marine mammals through a meticulous approach to assessing how the use of these Arctic waterways is changing - both with respect to wildlife and vessels. Our findings help inform management of the Arctic Waterways, particularly through the Arctic Waterways Safety Committee in Alaska - a collective of users of these waterways seeking to find consensus on best practices that avoid conflicts among users and with the wildlife that is at the heart of local food security.

Understanding vessel activities and risks in the arctic waterways

Assessing vessel traffic patterns, while intuitively straight forward, requires the analysis of complex datasets collected from ground-based or satellite based vessel tracking receivers. We are working with a range of colleagues and institutions to synthesize vessel tracking information, using cutting edge analytical techniques that depict seasonal vessel activity, drift scenarios for vessels that lose power, and where vessels may present threats to marine wildlife. Through a nuanced understanding of how different vessel types (e.g,. tankers versus fishing boats) travel and present risk to wildlife, we can help inform strategies to mitigate that risk. This is particularly important in Bering Strait where effective conservation will only be achieved with bilateral (with Russia) and international agreement (at the International Maritime Organization), or in bottlenecks where both ships and wildlife (particularly marine mammals) are forced together, such as the narrow passages around Banks Island in the Canadian Arctic, or Bering Strait.

Some of our outputs as we assess different types of vessel traffic in Arctic Beringia

Using drift models to assess beaching probability of vessels - risk is highest in fall and winter

Review of the conservation applications of vessel tracking data

understanding NOISE IN THE ARCTIC WATERWAYS

Marine mammals produce loud, species-specific vocalizations that can be used to passively monitor their presence, social behavior, and habitat use. Deployment of autonomous acoustic recorders in strategic locations for long periods is a highly efficient tool for monitoring marine mammal populations and to detect long-term changes in patterns of habitat utilization. These tools are inherently multi-purpose since characterization of both animal vocalizations and natural and anthropogenic features of the acoustic environment can be simultaneously monitored. Passive acoustic monitoring is a particularly useful tool for the Arctic, as hydrophones can be moored below the surface to avoid ice and storms that prevent ship or aerial surveys. We are currently actively deploying passive acoustic recorders in the northern Bering Sea and Bering Strait, as well as around Banks Island in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. Our goal is to develop systems, similar to those already in place in the Atlantic, that can alert managers when pulses of marine mammals are passing specific areas so vessels can be warned to avoid them or slow down.

Dr. Martin Robards assembling acoustic monitoring equipment aboard Perry Pungowiyi's 18' skiff. Photo credit Henry Huntington

Retrieving sound recording instruments deployed in October 2014. Photo credit Ricardo Antunes.

Captain Adem Boeckman of the Anchor Point. Photo credit Ricardo Antunes.

Dr. Steve Insley deploying an acoustic recorder at Sachs Harbour in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of Canada

Canadian Coast Guard assisting Dr. Steve Insley deploy recorders in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region

Fostering best practices in Arctic waterways

WCS intends to be a leader in providing critical information and policy recommendations of value at the local, national, and international arenas on arctic shipping issues. Over the past several years WCS has led efforts that culminated in the establishment of an Arctic Waterways Safety Committee – a multi-stakeholder group of waterway users working together to establish best practices for all traffic including international vessels in the Arctic waters around Alaska. The associated Arctic Waterways Safety Plan will document best practices, including the unique approaches to minimize impacts to wildlife and people in the Arctic waterways. Our work is now expanding to fulfill the environmental needs associated with the International Maritime Organization's Polar Code - implemented in January 2017.

Mapping cooperation and sharing networks on Sivuqaq

Human communities in Arctic Beringia and across the circumpolar north have relied for thousands of years on systems of exchange that persist today. Contemporary community economies are built upon the harvest of locally available plants, animals, and materials as well as cash from wage employment. Sharing—of wild food, labor, knowledge, and goods—is an important cultural value for the Indigenous communities of Sivuqaq (Gambell) and Sivungaq (Savoonga) on the island of Sivuqaq (St. Lawrence Island). These socially embedded systems of exchange redistribute wild foods from high-harvesting "super-households" to other households in the community.

Sivuqaq is an island roughly 60km from Russia's Chukotka peninsula. Having migrated across the land bridge, its people have inhabited the island for at least 4,000 years and share a language (Yupigestun) and cultural practices with their relatives in Chukotka. Whaling and walrus hunting are mainstays of the local food system, supplemented by hundreds of species such as tungtu (reindeer), sukilpaq (auklet), iviisa (halibut), and aqavzik (salmonberries). The land, rivers, ocean, and sea ice all provide for the people—in return, the people give thanks for what they receive and care for the local environment.

On Sivuqaq, wage employment is scarce and walrus ivory is relatively abundant. Many local people earn modest income from selling ivory carved into beautiful and often functional pieces of artwork. However, growing concern over the impacts of recent elephant ivory bans to this legal and sustainable handicraft trade prompted the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission to seek the assistance of WCS and Arizona State University in documenting the mixed cash-sharing economic networks on Sivuqaq. By showing the complexity of sharing networks, and the importance of whales and walrus to not only the food security, but also to the economic and social security of people living on Sivuqaq and beyond, we hope to minimize the impacts of policy change—including regulation of ivory trades elsewhere in the world and the harvest of marine mammals by local crews—on the fundamental elements of life in the Arctic.