Arctic Tourism and Sustainable Adaptation: Community Perspectives to Vulnerability and Climate Change

Abstract

The role of tourism in local development, combined with globalisation and climate change, are generating both opportunities and threats across Arctic communities. The impacts of climate change are felt more intensely in communities that are dependent on natural resources. This is increasingly occurring through Arctic tourism, which is often based on nature, and is the foundation of the economy of many small Arctic communities. The interplay between tourism and community-based adaptation represents a significant focus in Arctic tourism studies and can bring invaluable information to governments about the local level climate change impacts on livelihoods and on the potential future challenges. The results from a vulnerability study conducted in two case study communities in Finnish Lapland indicate that both external and internal stresses, combined with the impacts of climate change, force the communities to reconsider their current development paths. The communities are still able to absorb the changes taking place in weather patterns, but the current development paths do not fully support the idea of sustainable adaptation, with its concepts of environmental integrity, social justice and participation. Though several adaptation strategies are deployed, future vulnerability may increase due to ineffective adaptation mechanisms and the increasing role of nature in tourism development.