The Arctic Biodiversity Congress was held from 2-4 December 2014 in Trondheim, Norway. It was organized and hosted by the Arctic Council's Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) working group in co-operation with the Norwegian Environment Agency, and was co-chaired by Risa Smith, chair of CAFF, Tom Barry, CAFF Secretariat, and Finn Katerås, Norwegian Environment Agency.
The Congress addressed the conservation and sustainable use of Arctic biodiversity through dialogue among all relevant stakeholder groups. The meeting brought together around 450 representatives from academia, governments, industry, civil society and indigenous peoples.
The Congress sessions and presentations focused on three main themes: Arctic change, resilience and adaptation; mainstreaming biodiversity and linking Arctic ecosystems to society; and understanding cumulative effects and managing impacts.
Arctic Portal has been actively participating in the congress by presenting the Global Terrestrial Network on Permafrost database which is carried out as WP8 of PAGE21 (Changing permafrost in the Arctic and its Global Effects in the 21st century). The special emphasis in the presentation was the possibilities to cross-analyse vegetation observations with permafrost monitoring data.
A summary of the congress can be found here.