The New Arctic: Communities under threat

Allan Little investigates how the climate crisis is impacting different communities above the Arctic circle, from infrastructure damage to loss of life, eroding land and endangering thousand-year-old cultures and traditional knowledge. They are our eyes and ears on the speed with which our planet is changing. We look at Nenets reindeer herding on the Siberian tundra, infrastructure damage in Longyearbyen (the world’s most northern town on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard), and a pioneering environmental program in Kotzebue, Alaska. For communities such as Pond Inlet (Mittimatalik) in Nunavut, Canada, climate change compounds existing challenges caused by colonialism and lack of economic development.