L15 - Importance of cold environments

• wilderness environments are areas of unspoilt and remote regions of the world. they can be truly isolated like the arctic or antarctica or sparsely populated areas of the tundra that maintain wilderness characteristics
• the wilderness areas are increasingly under pressure from economic development in the form of tourism and other businesses, particularly those that wish to exploit natural resources
• in the past, wilderness areas were completely inaccessible due to a lack of roads and the extreme climate, but nowadays development of technology and overpopulation is threatening these areas
• there is a world-wide need to maintain the gene-pool of wild organisms to ensure that genetic diversity remains over time
• scientists need to have access to un disturbed animal and plant communities for studies on understanding how these ecosystems work
• wilderness areas perform important ecosystem services that the world relies on, the white snow and ice in polar regions reflects sunlight and helps to regulate earths temperatures
• the permafrost keeps large amounts of methane locked in ice and if it melts it could significantly increase global warming
• in tundra areas, the plants have adapted to survive and are very slow growing, this means that it takes many years for this environment to regrow and recover from damage
• it can take up to 50 years for the tyre tracks from off road vehicles to disappear
• outside influences can cause a culture to lose unique characteristics, for example in the past 20 native languages were spoken in alaska but no most tribes speak european languages, often english
• the inupiat people have lost their native language as missionaries from the USA came in the 1970s and taught in their schools: they were forbidden to speak their native language
• native names have been lost and the Inupiat people are often called english names now instead
• traditional native americans have used tourism as a way of supplementing their income, it can erode their traditional way of living as they are exposed to other methods and cultures, or they can be exploited for their heritage
• in the past, the Inuits of the arctic circle have acted as guides for tourists who wish to ’bag a polar bear’ by hunting, but this was stopped once the US supreme court made polar bears an endangered species in 2008
• svalbard is the most northern inhabited area of the world, polar bears outnumber humans 2:1
• in svalbard, science and research has become the main focus with specific concerns over climate change
• 10 different countries has facilities in Svalbard
• air should be clean so far north, but it isnt, scientists have found high levels of methane that are on the increase, because as the arctic warms, the permafrost, that should be frozen all year round, is melting, releasing vast amounts of methane gas from the soil into the atmosphere
• in just 3 years, one of the main glaciers in Svalbard has lost 4 metres in height. temperature has increased by 2 degrees in the last 40 years
• the evidence suggests that what is happening has far surpassed anything natural and is therefore the result of human activity
• it is thought that in the future, only 20 years from now, there may not be any ice in the arctic at all during the summer months which could have a huge global impact and a huge negative impact on animals at a local scale, who will have no where to go