Human Ecology And Climate Change: People And Resources In The Far North

The Far North, a land of extreme weather and intense beauty, is the only region of North America whose ecosystems have remained reasonably intact. Humans are newcomers there and nature predominates. As is widely known, recent changes in the Earth's atmosphere have the potential to create rapid climatic shifts in our life-time and well into the future. These changes, a product of southern industrial society, will have the greatest impact on ecosystems at northern latitudes, which until now have remained largely undisturbed. In this fragile balance, as terrestrial and aquatic habitats change, animal and human populations will be irrevocably altered.

Table of Contents:
Preface, Foreword, Contributors, List of Figures and Tables, PART I CLIMATE AND HUMAN POPULATIONS — A DYNAMIC BALANCE, 1. Human ecology and climate change at northern latitudes, 2. Potential climate change in northern North America, 3. Demography and socioeconomics of northern North America: Current status and impacts of climate change, PART II PREDICTING ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE, 4. Modeling potential impacts of climate change on northern landscapes, 5. Climate and ecological relationships in northern latitude ecosystems, 6. Responses of Arctic ungulates to climate change, 7. Effects of climate change on marine mammals in the Far North, 8. Response of anadromous fish to climate change in the North Pacific, PART III HUMAN POPULATIONS AND NATURAL RESOURCES: HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES, 9. Increments, ranges, and thresholds: Human population responses to climate change in northern Alaska, 10. Resource use in rural Alaskan communities, 11. Warming the Arctic: Environmentalism and Canadian Inuit, PART IV NATURAL RESOURCES AND HUMAN INSTITUTIONS IN A DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT, 12. Global warming and conflict management: Resident native peoples and protected areas, 13. Comanagement of natural resources: Some aspects of the Canadian experience, 14. Common property resource management and northern protected areas, 15. Inuit indigenous knowledge and science in the Arctic, 16. Understanding northern environments and human populations through cooperative research: A case study in Beringia, 17. Biology, politics, and culture in the management of subsistence hunting and fishing: An Alaskan case history, 18. Biosphere reserves: A flexible framework for regional cooperation in an era of change, PART V ESSAYS: CONFLICT IN SOCIAL VALUES, 19. Global warming, protected areas, and the right to live off the land, 20. Preserving environmental values in parks and protected areas, PART VI SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS, 21. An interdisciplinary assessment of climate change on northern ecosystems: The Mackenzie Basin Impact Study, 22. An action plan for an uncertain future in the Far North, Index

About the Author :
David L. Peterson is an ecologist who studies the impact of environmental stress on terrestrial ecosystems. His research focuses on the impacts of climate change, fire and air pollution on forest vegetation. He specializes in the use of dendrochronology (tree-ring analysis) to assess long-term effects of these factors on tree growth. Darryll R. Johnson is a social scientist who has worked on natural resource issues in national parks of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska for the past 17 years. His research centers on visitor behavior and resource damage in national parks, visitor carrying capacity in parks, and subsistence uses by local rural residents in National Park System units in Alaska. He is co-editor of the book Ecosystem Management in Parks and Wilderness.