ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief survey of some aspects of environmental governance and conservation in the Polar Regions. It discusses its changing nature in light of increased pressures on Arctic ecosystems and wildlife which arise from climate change, pollution, habitat disturbance and loss, and human activities, including resource extraction and the over-exploitation of resources. The chapter considers way in which indigenous and local perspectives are being incorporated into environmental monitoring and community-based research. Environmental assessment and ongoing monitoring of threats to ecosystems and habitats and the status of wildlife are key components of national and international environmental governance regimes and conservation management. Global environmental conservation is characterized by a large number of increasingly complex arrangements and assemblages of regional, national and international organizations, institutions, agreements and regimes. Conservation and environmental management in the Arctic is largely more a matter for individual states and their implementation of national legislation.
