Activities and their impacts on the region

Question 1

Fishing - impact on BD

Answer 1

Will get worse with climate change as more areas are exposed from melting ice, damage to consumers higher up the food chain.

Question 2

Tourism - background info

Answer 2

About 1.5 million tourists visit each year, currently tourism is centred around Disko Bay off Greenland’s west coast.

Question 3

Shipping - background info

Answer 3

Likely to increase due to increased exploitation, shipping is only possible in the summer months, the Arctic represents a major ‘short-cut’ for shipping between Europe and Asia.

Question 4

Shipping - impact of BD

Answer 4

e.g. Exxon Valdez 1989 - could cause severe pollution from oil spills - will get worse with climate change.

Question 5

Resource extraction - background info

Answer 5

USGS in 2008 estimated that there was 90 billion barrels of oil, 1669 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquid. There is open-cast iron mining (Baffin Island)

Question 6

Fishing - background info

Answer 6

Between 1950 and 2006 some 950,000 tonnes of fish were caught in the US, Canadian and Russian Arctic waters.