The Arctic Council is a forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the eight Arctic States, Arctic Indigenous communities and others on issues like environmental protection. The Arctic Council’s Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (or “CAFF”) Working Group contracted with ABSI and Western Alaska Partnership to pilot an inventory of biodiversity marine monitoring efforts in the U.S. Arctic. Working with Aleut International Association, we completed a synthesis of the biological monitoring efforts of tribes, agencies, universities and NGOs in coastal and marine environments. In addition to describing the overall dynamics of monitoring efforts we made four recommendations for agencies and academics in our final report on how to better work with coastal communities on collaborative monitoring efforts:
o Incorporate Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge into efforts to understand and address rapid environmental change.
o Invest in regional liaisons to promote two-way information exchange.
o Invest in information sharing activities that promote co-development of knowledge approaches with Indigenous communities.
o Pay local observers to collect monitoring data.