Assessing resilience when change is the only given

The Arctic region is changing rapidly, on many levels, which increases the risk for abrupt social and ecological change due to crossing of ‘tipping points’ with dramatic impacts on ecosystems and people’s lives. For those charged with managing natural resources and public policy in the region, identifying potential tipping points of change can help in planning for the future. Resilience provides a scientific framework to assess risks, understand the implications of simultaneous social and environmental changes, and to identify strategies for building strong societies that can face the challenges of increasing social and environmental changes in the Arctic.

This is the context of the ARR, which was approved last November as an Arctic Council project. The initiative is led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre and SEI, with financial support from the Swedish government and in collaboration with several arctic organizations.

Resilience is the long-term capacity of a system to deal with change and continue to develop and adapt without crossing critical thresholds. The term has been used for many years in research on environmental change and is now increasingly coming up also in policy circles. But like other broad concepts, resilience is an abstract, even elusive term, easily filled with different meanings depending on who is speaking.

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