The AC could make progress in this realm by initiating programmatic activities dealing with a small number of these concerns that are of obvious importance in their own right and that, taken together, convey a clear sense of the nature of the human dimensions of sustainable development in the Arctic. Human populations in the Arctic are among the most dynamic in the world. Throughout the region, fishing comprises immense commercial catches, essential subsistence harvests, and highly prized recreational activities, a situation that often leads to tensions among members of the different user communities. These fisheries are embedded in large marine ecosystems that are highly dynamic and not well understood. The result is a persistent pattern of booms and busts along with a continuous stream of efforts to devise management regimes capable of ensuring sustainable harvests.
Sustainable development is a process rather than a destination.
To live sustainably is to learn continuously, acquiring skills to cope with the challenges of an ever-changing world and maintaining the flexibility needed to adapt to shifting circumstances. Arctic peoples who survived for millennia in dynamic environments they were powerless to control developed exceptional skills in meeting these challenges. But they call for the same type of adaptiveness to sustain human welfare through the development of individual skills and social know how. As leaders of AMAP and CAFF made clear during the workshop, the working groups comprising the AC's Environmental Protection Programme are already engaged in activities that deal with matters of sustainable development. The growing concern of AMAP with matters of human health and the commitment of CAFF to the protection of biological diversity, to take just two prominent examples, belong to this category.