ARCUS | Arctic Research Consortium of the United States

7th Annual ARCUS Award for Arctic Research Excellence

Submitted by		Sarah Hamilton
Authors
Category		Interdisciplinary Research
Title		Toxic Contamination of the Arctic: A Policy Overview
Affiliation		School of Law, University of Colorado, Boulder, Denver, CO, USA

Abstract

Though the Arctic has long been considered one of the most pristine locations on earth, it is currently facing environmental catastrophe. People from Alaska to Finland, whose ancestors have relied for a hundred generations on a symbiotic relationship with the plants and animals around them, now find themselves part of a world they no longer know. The people and ecosystems of the Arctic face a rising crisis of environmental contamination from sources beyond their control. In the past half-century, the Arctic has become severely contaminated by industrial, urban, and agricultural pollution, much of which originates in distant lands. Many of the toxins reaching the Arctic persist for years and tend to concentrate up food webs, thereby posing a threat to the health of Arctic people, animals, and plants. While other regions of the world have equal or even greater levels of pollution, environmental contamination in the Arctic raises special concerns due to the complexities of Arctic food webs and their close connections to human cultures and diets. Pollution, especially long-range pollution, is a global issue requiring global attention and remedies. However, no blanket solution can adequately address the specific problems of the Arctic. Arctic ecosystem health, human health, food safety, economic resources, and the cultural foundations of indigenous people are all endangered, and no international law currently addresses these problems. This article outlines the sources and peculiar nature of pollution problems in the Arctic, and explains the oversights and difficulties of existing international solutions.