The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme was created in 1991 as a group within the Arctic Council. Its main job is to help the governments of eight Arctic member countries—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States—with environmental issues like pollution. AMAP works together with scientists, Arctic Indigenous peoples, and political leaders from these eight countries.
Contributions and impact
AMAP's monitoring and assessments have helped the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP), and the World Health Organization (WHO) understand how to reduce harmful chemical emissions.
The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was greatly influenced by AMAP's reports on "Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic" (SWIPA). The first SWIPA report, titled "Climate Change and the Cryosphere," was published in 2011 for an Arctic Council ministerial meeting. The United States Department of State encouraged other member nations to take action based on the SWIPA Assessment’s findings and recommendations. A journal article titled "The urgency of Arctic change" used information from AMAP's 2017 assessments.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), a U.S. federal lab, the Arctic Report Card—which tracks environmental changes—undergoes an independent peer review organized by AMAP. One hundred forty-seven researchers from eleven countries submitted eleven essays for this review.
The creation of AEPS' AMAP was an important starting point for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). From the mid-1980s to 2000, research by atmospheric chemists showed that POPs in Inuit country food could be linked to long-range transport of these chemicals from southern regions to the Arctic.
AMAP does a mercury assessment every ten years. AMAP has worked with two of the four peer-reviewed Global Mercury Assessments by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), including the 2019 report. UNEP published the first Global Mercury Assessment in 2002, the second in 2008, the third in 2013, and the fourth in 2018. These reports provided the scientific basis for the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which started in August 2017. As part of this convention, UNEP does mercury literature reviews every five years with AMAP.
In a 2022 article in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, AMAP researchers reported that 200 tonnes of mercury enter the Arctic Ocean each year. In the 2010s, scientists focused on mercury pollution caused by human activities. By 2022, understanding of mercury sources had improved: one third comes from the atmosphere, 25% from ocean currents, 20% from river flows, and 20% from coastal erosion. The large amount of mercury released from melting permafrost raises concerns about mercury being ingested by polar bears, pilot whales, narwhals, belugas, and hooded seals—animals that provide food for Inuit in the Arctic.
History
In 1987, in Murmansk, Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, suggested that Arctic countries work together on issues like protecting the environment.
In 1989, talks began between eight Arctic countries—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Sweden, and the United States. These discussions led to the creation of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) in June 1991 in Rovaniemi, Finland. At that time, AMAP and four other groups were formed under the AEPS.
AMAP first studied the Arctic environment, looking at both current problems and possible future issues. Since its start, AMAP has been the main activity for Arctic environmental cooperation.
On September 19, 1996, in Ottawa, Canada, the Arctic Council was created. This group was given the task of managing and organizing five working groups, including AMAP. In 1997, Norway completed the process of including AEPS programs within the Arctic Council.
In 2003, the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) helped AMAP prepare its assessment of the Arctic region.
Mandate
The AMAP tracks and studies parts of the AEPS. Since 1996, AMAP has focused its research in the Arctic on chemical and radioactive pollutants. AMAP's research includes the High Arctic and sub-Arctic areas in the Arctic regions around the world.