We are a student-led Oxford University expedition investigating environmental change in Arctic Norway, aiming to increase understanding of its effects and spread the word about the climate change occurring today.
In November 2017 a group of Oxford students sat down to plan an adventure. With the aid of pizza, an expedition proposal was soon written. After many grant applications and interviews, hours of planning, and meetings with experts across the country, we became Finnmark: Past, Present and Future.
East Finnmark is a remote, poorly understood region at the confluence of Norway, Finland and Russia. At first pause, it is little impacted by the ‘outside’ world, however, under the surface this is a region increasingly impacted by globalisation and climate change. Change is not something of the future, environmental change is afoot right now. On the Varanger Peninsula the communities of reindeer herders and fishermen are reliant on their environment, and it is important that we understand how their surroundings are changing to help them to best prepare for the future.
East Finnmark is a remote, poorly understood region at the confluence of Norway, Finland and Russia. At first pause, it is little impacted by the ‘outside’ world, however, under the surface this is a region increasingly impacted by globalisation and climate change. Change is not something of the future, environmental change is afoot right now. On the Varanger Peninsula the communities of reindeer herders and fishermen are reliant on their environment, and it is important that we understand how their surroundings are changing to help them to best prepare for the future.
The expedition was inspired by two pieces of information:
- Adrian and Holly had visited the area in 2016 for their undergraduate geological mapping project, and were shocked to see the dying of the birch forests. On return we spoke to our supervisor who had been to the are in the 1970s, it sounded like the landscape vegetation had changed a lot.
- In 2017 National Geographic published an article on landscape change in Glacier Bay Alaska. Using rephotography the showed how over 100 years the landscape had changed from Tundra to Birch forest, this was all the inspiration we need to form the expedition.
