earth science

Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment

Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment rather than just read about it. In short: The Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment Working Group (PAME) is one of six working groups encompassed by the Arctic Council. Founded as part of the 1991 Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy, it assimilated into the structure of the Council following the signing of the 1996 Ottawa Declaration by the eight Arctic states.

Key takeaways

Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment Working Group (PAME) is one of six working groups encompassed by the Arctic Council. Founded as part of the 1991 Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy, it assimilated into the structure of the Council following the signing of the 1996 Ottawa Declaration by the eight Arctic states. The Working Group claims to operate across the domains of Arctic shipping, maritime pollution, marine protected areas, ecosystem approaches to management, resource exploitation and development, and associations with the marine environment. Where necessary, it is tasked with producing guidelines and recommendations for policy improvement, with projects approved every two years by the council. The working group includes representatives from each state, (Canada, Denmark (representing both Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States) as well as its Permanent Participants (Aleut International Association (AAI), Arctic Athabaskan Council (AAC), Gwich'in Council International (GCI), Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), and the Saami Council) representing the region's indigenous populations, and a number of observers. The Secretariat for PAME is located in Akureyri, Iceland.

Objectives The overarching objectives for PAME were formally outlined in the 2009 meeting held in Oslo, Norway. These objectives are:

To improve knowledge and respond to emerging knowledge of the Arctic Marine Environment. To determine the adequacy of applicable international/regional commitments and promote their implementation and compliance. To facilitate partnerships, programme and technical cooperation and support communication, reporting and outreach both within and outside the Arctic Council.

Arctic Maritime Strategic Plans PAME's objectives, and strategies to further their realisation, are periodically delineated in the group's Arctic Maritime Strategic Plans. As of May 2020, the group has published two such documents; one for the years between 2000 and 2015, and the other for those between 2015 and 2025.

Arctic Maritime Strategic Plan 2005–2015 The first of the Working Group's Arctic Maritime Strategic Plans was approved by the Arctic Council in November 2004. The plan centred around:

The curtailment and prevention of Arctic marine pollution, The development of sustainable mechanisms for employment of Arctic marine resources, The conservation of marine biodiversity and ecosystems and The 'health and prosperity' of all Arctic inhabitants.

Arctic Maritime Strategic Plan 2015–2025 The second Arctic Maritime Strategic Plan delineated four distinct goals relating to Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment for the following 10 years. It was approved by the Council in April 2015 at a meeting in Iqaluit, Canada. The plan called for:

The furthering of knowledge relating to the Arctic marine environment and the continuation of the domain's monitoring and assessment structures, The conservation of ecosystem function and encouragement of marine biodiversity, Sustainable employment of the marine environment, centred around cumulative environmental impacts and The enhancement of 'economic, social and cultural well-being of Arctic inhabitants', including the Arctic's indigenous population and the strengthening of their capacity to adapt to ongoing changes in the Arctic marine environment. The second Arctic Maritime Strategic Plan was accompanied by two plans to strengthen its progress: the Implementation Plan and Communication Plan. The former was intended to provide the Arctic Council with an increasingly structured approach to achieving the Working Group's goals, as well as providing guidelines against which progress could be appraised. The latter aimed to facilitate communication and understanding to ensure the fulfilment of the working group's goals.

Cooperation PAME works in partnership with The Arctic Council's five additional working groups to construct its strategic plans and suggest mechanisms for their implementation. The five additional working groups of the Arctic Council are:

Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) Conservation of Arctic Flora & Fauna (CAFF) Emergency Prevention, Preparedness & Response (EPPR) Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG) Arctic Contaminants Action Program (ACAP)

Projects

Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment In 2009, the working group released a major report on Arctic marine shipping, the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment, which analyses current and predicted trends in Arctic transport. PAME was tasked to conduct this research after the 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment concluded that Arctic sea ice decline "is very likely to increase marine transport and access to resources". PAME identifies increases in marine tourism and in transport supporting the exploration and extraction of marine resources as potential catalysts of environmental degradation.

Maritime pollution A key role of PAME relates itself to the proliferation of Arctic maritime contamination and pollution, stemming from both off-shore and on-shore activities. As of May 2020, PAME is the process of developing a regional action plan on marine litter in the Arctic, as an extension of a preliminary study on Arctic marine litter and micro-plastics which was carried out between 2017 and 2019. The group's focus on Arctic maritime pollution can be identified in its 1998 Regional Programme of Action for the Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment from Land-based Activities (Arctic RPA), updated in 2009 to reflect contemporary challenges in preventing Arctic marine pollution.

Marine protected areas The expert group of PAME's Marine Protected Areas subdivision is co-led by Canada, Norway and the United States. PAME adheres to the definition of a 'Marine Protected Area' volunteered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The definition focuses the existence of a distinct geographical area managed in such a way that ensures the long-term conservation and protection of its natural ecosystems. There are seven categories to accommodate the various characters of protected areas that exist globally, with the Arctic states each possessing policy tools to designate and manage these.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment

In research: Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Governance of the Arctic, Ocean pollution, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment in simple terms?

Why does Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment.