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Sustaining ecosystems - Polar biomes - Coggle Diagram
Sustaining ecosystems - Polar biomes
Characteristics
Very low temperatue of -40 degrees in winter
Tundra Climate
Average rainfall of 160-250mm per year
Taiga - large expanses of confierous forests
Artic willow, Pygmy buttercup, Arctic cottongrass that cling to the ground surface to avoid wind damage
Arctic has marine and land animals like polar bears and walruses
Contains lots of natural resources
Interdependence
Climate - Arctic has very cold climate and also very dry, temperatures only slightly increase during the summer
Ice cover - Most of the water about 80 degrees north freezes in the winter, and most becomes thin ice during the summer
Aniamals - Ice cover impacts what plants can grow, polar bears need thick ice to hunt, and phytoplankton needed ice cover so they can grow on the underside of it
People - Humans use animal fur to stay warm, Inuits feed their dogs walrus meat as it is very fatty
Soils - Climate impacts how much permafrost there is
Plants - during the summer months, some plants use the defrosted permafrost to grow
People of the Arctic
Inuits - indigenous people livig in Arctic regions
Live in Arctic houses on stilts to avoid flooding
Use animal fur to stay warm
Animal blubber can be used as fuel
Boots called Kamiks are made from seal skin which is waterproof
Main mode of transport is sledge, they feeds their dogs walrus meet
Inuits eat arctic animals, like raw sea liver and raw walrus skin for vitamin c
4 million live in the arctic
Valuable arctic resourses
No country owns the grographic north pole
Surrounding arctic states that border the Arctic ocean own an area of 200nm of their coastline
412 billion barrels of oil
22% of the worlds oil and natural gas
Difficult to travel through the arctic due to ice cover, required ice breaker ships
1/3 of russias fish come from the arctic ocean
Challenges limiting access of resources
Ice cover - requires drilling which is time consuming and slow
Country tensions limit access due to border agreements
Environmental activists prevent oil rigs from working
Oil spills
Very dificult to clear up due to thick ice
Russian oil spill on July 2020, killed all vegetation in an 80 mile radius, 21,000 l of diesel flooded into rivers
Threats
Arctic people - Environmental challanges can affect Arctic inhabitants and their livelihoods
Climate change - Damages habitats, leads to acceleration of human activites which leads to further damage
Shrinking ice caps - threat ot wildlife like polar bears
Russian invasion of Ukrain - risk the rule of the arctic counci as Russia plays a big part in it
Tourism - Increased by %600 between 2006-2016, 8.3 million toursits annually
Shipping - disturbs wildife and pollutes
Industrial fishing - affects food chain
Large scale management
Arctic council
Encourages national actions to reduce emissions and release of pollution
Also monitors and assesses the arctic environment to provide guidance to governments
Works to conserve arctic biodiversity and advance sustainable development
Contains 6 working councils, like Arctic contaminats action programme
Evaluation
It's important as it has provided a forum for the negotiation of three important legally binidng agreements among 8 arctic states
However it can inforce anything, so not very powerful
COP
Conference of the parties
Meetings between UN countries, where they pledge to reduce environmental changes
Pledges
End deforestation by 2030
£3 bn to protect nature and improve farming
Cut global methan emissions by %30 by 2030
Evalutation
Good that countries are agreeing
Nothing is inforced, so doesn't have much impact
Agreements that whoever was nearest to the oil spill would clean it up, regardless of who spilt it
Small scale management
Ninginganiq NWA (National wildlife area)
Protects and manages arctic activities in accordance with the Wildlife Area regulations
Activities that could interfere wiht the conservation of wildlife can be prohibited
Most NWAs are unaccessible to the public
Allows the Nunavut inuits to hunt wildlife and live their normal lives (hunting for birds eggs) without intereference,
Anyone other that the Nunavut inuis must obrain a permit to access or conduct any activity
Evalutation
Allows indigenous people to sustaibaly live without threat from commercial business
Helps protect indigenous species like Bowhead whale and polar bear, which is very important as they are of threat from tourists
Ships crowd on the Sanctuary edge, threat to life and also economic business
53,000 ha of land, 280,000 hectares of marine habitat
336,000 hectares in total
Species like the Polar Bear and Ringed Seal
147 Bowhead whales observed at once, largest in Canada