Arctic

The Arctic is the area around the Earth's North Pole. The Arctic includes parts of Russia, Alaska (United States), Canada, Greenland (a territory of Denmark), Iceland, and Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, and Finland), as well as the Arctic Ocean.

Nature and natural resources

Nature in the Arctic is comparatively clean although there are certain ecologically difficult localized pollution problems that present a serious threat to people?s health living around these pollution sources. Due to the prevailing worldwide sea and air currents, the Arctic area is the fall out region for long-range transport pollutants and in some places the concentrations exceed the levels of densely populated urban areas.

Related Topics:
Pollution - Pollutant

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The Arctic region includes sizeable potential natural resources (oil, gas, minerals, forest and fish) to which modern technology and the opening up of Russia have given significant new opportunities. The interest of the tourism industry in the cold and exotic Arctic is also on the increase. This is for example, seen in the rise in international tourism as a significant opportunity but also as a threat.

Related Topics:
Natural resource - Russia - Tourism

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The Arctic region is one of the last and most extensive continuous wilderness areas in the world and its significance in preserving biodiversity and genotypes is considerable. The increasing presence of people fragments vital habitats. The Arctic is particularly susceptible to the abrasion of groundcover and to the disturbance of the rare reproduction places of the animals that are characteristic to the region.

Related Topics:
Wilderness - Biodiversity - Genotype - Groundcover

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External link: AMAP - the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme

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