CircumArctic Rangifer monitoring and assessment (CARMA) network – origins, goals, accomplishments and future

Abstract

This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License Editor in Chief: Birgitta Ahman, Technical Editor Eva Wiklund and Graphic Design: Bertil Larsson, www.rangifer.no Origins !e CircumArctic Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment (CARMA) network is an informal group of scientists, community representatives, and management agencies who formed to better understand the impacts of global changes on migratory tundra caribou. In this report we outline how that network evolved, discuss some of the accomplishments of the group, and look forward to CARMA’s future. CARMA was formally launched in Vancouver in 2004. !is launch was preceded by several events. In 1998 the Arctic Council ministers directed the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) to “identify elements of a program to monitor circumpolar biodiversity” and to “assess the e"ects of climate change on Arctic ecosystems”. Concurrent with that initiative, in 1999 in Rovaniemi, Finland, the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the US National Science Foundation funded an interdisciplinary conference of Rangifer managers, users, and scientists to discuss elements of a circumpolar monitoring and assessment network for human-Rangifer systems and the formation of a community to implement the plan (Russell et al., 2000). After a meeting to implement the Arctic Council’s directive, Rangifer was con#rmed as a key indicator species and the CARMA network was o$cially endorsed by CAFF. With that endorsement and the plan from the Rovaniemi conference in mind, the IASC human-Rangifer study group met in Minary, New Hampshire, in 2001 and %eshed out the elements of a Rangifer network, leading to the o$cial launch of the CARMA network. Subsequently, in 2005, CARMA was invited to become an o$cial network under the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP). !e CBMP reports to the CAFF.