News | Study of Environmental Arctic Change
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One of SEARCH’s graduate research fellows at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Imane Darkaoui is on-site participating in COP30. After a logistically challenging journey from Monterey, California, to Belém, Brazil, earlier this week, Amany’s first report from COP30 has arrived. _____ The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the annual meeting for all the parties…
What Is COP? COP is the “Conference of the Parties,” an annual United Nations summit where world leaders, diplomats, scientists, and other stakeholders gather to address climate change issues. The “Parties” refer to the 198 countries (plus the European Union) that have signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a treaty adopted…
Slushy sidewalks, falling flakes, and brisk breezes indicate April’s late-winter tendrils are yet to relinquish Anchorage from their grasps. None of it freezes folks in their footsteps. Over 1,000 people from many corners of the globe have traveled to Alaska’s metropolis for the 10th anniversary Arctic Encounter Symposium (AES), North America’s largest Arctic policy and…
SEARCH Highlights: How we're working together to share what we know
When SEARCH came together in September 2021 with funding from the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, we relied on our shared values to guide us into a new way of working together. We needed everyone’s observations and knowledge to be equitably included regardless of whether they were communicated in writing or orally. Mere…
To set the tone during our first all teams convening in Anchorage, Alaska, in June 2022, co-Principal Investigators Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer and Vera Kingeekuk Metcalf began day one by walking all SEARCH teams through the importance of a shared vision and values. After reading aloud and talking about each of the First Alaskans Institute’s shared…
From her childhood in Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island to a career bursting with advocacy and marine management, Vera Kingeekuk Metcalf’s life has been dedicated to Alaska’s oceans and coasts. Earlier this year, that dedication was recognized when the Alaska SeaLife Center presented Vera with the Walter J. and Ermalee Hickel Lifetime Achievement Award. Awarded…
In February 2023, principal investigator Brendan Kelly traveled to northwest Alaska, first to Kotzebue where he and SEARCH team member Cyrus Harris discussed the changing environment with representatives of the Native Village of Kotzebue, Maniilaq Corporation, and the Northwest Arctic Borough. After touring a program—co-produced by Cyrus, colleagues from Maniilaq, and a food scientist—that feeds…
There’s a lot to do when you’re a full-time graduate student. Classes, projects, internships, networking, career development, and side jobs are but a handful of the things that can occupy your time. Sometimes, folks add collaborating with SEARCH to the mix. This past May, two of our Research Assistants graduated from the Middlebury Institute of…
The vast Arctic Ocean at the top of our planet has been covered in sea ice longer than humans have been on Earth. Crucial habitat upon which Arctic ecosystems and people rely, that sea ice cover has historically remained even in the warmest summer months. With rising greenhouse gas emissions from around the world warming …
Some years ago, Cyrus Harris, a hunter in Kotzebue, Alaska, realized Elders living in care facilities suffered without access to their traditional foods. Cyrus then collaborated with other co-workers from Maniilaq, government food safety regulators, and food scientists to safely supply traditional foods to Indigenous elders in government-regulated care facilities. With Cyrus and so many…
If we were to add up the collective years of the recently formed SEARCH Advisory Committee, we’d get pretty close to half a millennium. Between October 2022 and March 2023, we invited and welcomed to our Advisory Committee nine leaders in Arctic Indigenous knowledge, science, politics, economics, and business: Honorable Aleqa Hammond; Gail Schubert; Lisa…
A Friday evening phone call between Executive Director Athena Copenhaver and team member from Savoonga Bryan Rookok, Jr. turned into an hour-long discussion of hunting, weather, family, and food. Never far from the edges of these topics lingers the specter of a changing Arctic environment and how these shifts in the living world impact people.…
Upon receiving funding for a fresh phase of SEARCH centering the practice of co-production in 2021, we set out to understand the greater landscape of co-production in the Arctic. This exploration has taken the shape of a review paper authored by several SEARCH contributors, and now, we are preparing to submit this review for peer-reviewed…