MARATIn the face of rapid changes, Arctic coastal communities are navigating seascapes and landscapes marked by uncertainty, challenge, and opportunity. The MARAT-IASC workshop, held in Eastman near Montreal, Canada, in November 2024, brought together a team of researchers from different countries, disciplines, and career stages to advance research aimed to understand social-ecological changes in the marine Arctic and ways to build resilience, adapt, and transform toward more sustainable and just futures. This gathering was a culminating point in the international consortium MARAT (Marine Arctic Resilience, Adaptations and Transformations), which we initially established in 2020 through funding from the Belmont Forum. Through this workshop, the International Arctic Science Committee allowed us to pursue and expand our work led by early career researchers from Canada, Sweden, and Alaska. In MARAT, we study how Arctic marine ecological and social systems are responding to climatic and socio-economic changes, and the implications for resilience of coastal communities of the Arctic.

We had three key objectives for the MARAT-IASC workshop. First, we wanted to discuss results and learnings from each of our four work packages, sharing about significant findings that span ecological and social marine systems in the Arctic and their implications for resilience-building. Key results include, for example, improved understanding of marine food web dynamics and resilience under climate and fishing pressures, new insights on Arctic Char – an important species for northern communities – diet and nutritional quality under climate change, a bioeconomic model of Pacific Salmon fisheries, and an assessment of livelihood resilience (through labour and skills data) across the North.

Second, we aimed for the workshop to be a collective writing space to advance outputs, both specific to each of the work packages, as well as a MARAT-wide collaborative paper. MARAT’s outputs include peer-reviewed papers as well as community-focused deliverables, including a short film. We hosted ‘writing retreat’ sessions followed by group discussions, which fostered productive and rich discussions and writing. The group also watched the short film together to discuss ways to increase its impact at community and regional scales, as well as at the circumpolar scale. Importantly, we worked on a MARAT-wide collaborative paper reflecting on the role of diversity (both social and ecological) by building on our different case studies (Canadian Arctic, Alaskan Arctic, Circumpolar comparative cases). We produced a first draft of the paper at the workshop. Together, the different outputs aim to make MARAT’s findings both scientifically robust and accessible to Arctic communities and decision-makers. Our work can support sustainable resource management, biodiversity conservation, and resilience-building across the Arctic.

Finally, we wanted to explore ways to pursue our international, interdisciplinary, and ECR-led programme into the future. We discussed strategies for sustaining the collaborative momentum established during the project, including to identify new funding opportunities, and to expand and strengthen our circumpolar and community partnerships. During the workshop, we identified potential funding opportunities, including one with an upcoming deadline. We started our work on this proposal at the workshop, which we submitted shortly after. We happily just got the confirmation of this funding. The MARAT-IASC workshop was pivotal in advancing our work and shaping the next phase of our international, interdisciplinary, and early-career led research group.

Highlights

  1. Our research team shared rich discussions on our results on Arctic social-ecological changes at different scales and their implications for resilience and sustainability in the changing Arctic, with approaches ranging from modelling marine food webs, circumpolar livelihood data, to metabarcoding and bioeconomic models.
  2. Building on case studies across the North, we explore the role of diversity, both ecological and social, in shaping resilience in the Arctic.
  3. Our early-career led consortium brings together scientists from different disciplines and countries (Alaska, Canada, and Sweden) and involves community-collaborative research with Indigenous Knowledge holders. The workshop was a rich space to shape future pathways for our group to continue and expand.

Photo: The six in-person participants of the MARAT-IASC workshop in November 2024. Some participants also joined remotely during hybrid sessions

Date and Location 

5-7 November 2024 | Montreal, Quebec, Canada

IASC Working Groups funding the project

Project Lead

Marianne Falardeau, TELUQ University and Université Laval) 
Juan Rocha, Stockholm Resilience Center, Sweden

Year funded by IASC

 2024

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