Contribution to the Arctic Action Plan
By Patrizio Mariani
Last June, the Arctic Action Plan was officially launched. It identifies three types of challenges: research challenges, organisational challenges, and uptake challenges.
- Research challenges are core scientific areas that should be advanced to enable the production of transformative ocean science solutions
- Organizational challenges for devising effective strategies to provide and support efficient coordination, coherence, funding, infrastructure, data management and public support to activities in the regions throughout the years
- Uptake challenges for enhancing and accelerating the societal utilisation and benefits of ocean science solutions in the Arctic regions and beyond.
The Arctic Action Plan also identifies essential transformative solutions to advance knowledge on Arctic processes, and to support integrated ecosystem assessments and management of its shared resources. Those challenges should be addressed to support rights holders and stakeholders to align their efforts and draft partnerships during the Ocean Decade.
The Arctic Action Plan was developed with the help of more than 300 contributors from industry and governments, NGOs, representatives of local and indigenous communities in the Arctic, and the broad scientific community. This was done through a series of online working groups and consultations in 2020-21 where MISSION ATLANTIC contributed to identify and discuss scientific priorities. This important initiative opens interesting perspectives for promoting an alignment of marine research priorities in the large Atlantic-Artic region.