A vanishing world

2 July 2009

As climate change transforms the Arctic’s fragile ecosystem, many of its unique species are threatened, some with extinction.

We are likely to see an intensification of current conflicts over how best to preserve these animals’ dwindling populations: with conservationists in one corner squaring up to the sport and fur hunters in the other, indigenous people are often caught uncomfortably in the middle.

*Clockwise, from top*: caribou migrate across the tundra in summer, Hudson Bay, Canada; an Atlantic walrus lounges on Svalbard’s pack ice; a polar bear distributes his weight so as not to fall through thin ice, Cape Churchill, Canada; a typical Greenland landscape; Musk Ox form a defensive line, Banks Island, Canada.