Arctic Social Engagements: Best Practice Principles
Linda Y. Brewer works on the North Slope of Alaska. Photo taken in Utqiaġvik, Alaska during the summer months. Photo: Linda Y. Brewer
Arctic development requires thoughtful consideration of the unique cultures, values, and oral history tradition of the local and Indigenous Peoples; the authority of Tribal governments; physical remoteness, isolation, and geographic spread of the territories; environmental and weather extremes; and the area’s history of industrial development. Not all these factors are actively considered by those leading the developments; however, each factor is significant to the design, the pace, and the social and economic impacts of the development, and to its success or failure.
Arctic Social Engagement studies have been deployed broadly over the last century to inform and guide industrial development efforts and to identify potential impacts on local Arctic Peoples. These studies have been performed with varying designs, from brief consultations to in-depth engagements, and from narrowly targeted groups to a community-wide and inclusive approach.
Of these approaches, ‘community listening studies’ have been among the most successful in soliciting participation and leading to the greatest opportunity for mutual understanding, cooperation, and progress. They allow for a deeper understanding of the stakeholders, invite voluntary participation, and include stories of experiences, ideas, and perspectives; they grant the opportunity to validate the understanding of what is heard and give recognition to the volunteers for the value of contributing to the effort; and they look for the nuances beyond the surface, allowing community and cultural insight to guide any local development projects.
Developing a program of social engagement in the Arctic carries with it unique physical and environmental challenges. Understanding these challenges in designing community listening studies means actively searching for the best options to meet the local Arctic cultural requirements. Communities which have had multiple experiences of industry engagement are more sophisticated in expectations of the quality of engagement programs. Proactive engagement in advance of industry development is among the expectations, as are the inclusion of a broad representative group from the communities potentially impacted.
In recent years, multi-year, multi-village social engagement programs have been conceived, designed, and delivered in the unique context of the Arctic. This article looks at lessons learned in programs with community listening studies at their heart, identifies best practice principles in Arctic Social Engagements, and offers insights for future social engagements in the Arctic.
Designing an Arctic Social Engagement
Successful Arctic Social Engagements are designed around a set of underlying beliefs: a deep respect for the ecological experience and knowledge of the local and Indigenous Peoples; the acknowledgement that inclusion and involvement of these Peoples optimizes decision-making, design, and approach; the recognition that relationships develop over time and trust is easily broken; and a reflection that the environmental, social, and economic impacts must support and sustain community and culture, both now and in the future. From these beliefs, four best practice principles flow:
- Building Multi-year Relationships: Creating sustained, trusted, and committed relationships over the long-term, including before to feet-on-the-ground through to and beyond the operations of the industrial development.
- Deploying Frequent Community Listening Studies: Using the ability to listen to, understand, and revisit that understanding of, concerns, needs, and the vision of the local and Indigenous Peoples.
- Monitoring Impacts of and on Development: Identifying, managing, and monitoring physical environment, social, cultural, and cumulative industrial impacts created by the current and other developments.
- Identifying Social Opportunities: Leveraging local Arctic knowledge and identifying opportunities for creating a sustainable footprint and legacy, while introducing new and reusable technologies.
Principle 1: Building Multi-year Relationships
Relationship building is a long-term, multi-year program, not just a single or a set of community consultations. In Arctic communities, relationships have been critical for surviving the harsh environment. Indeed, the culture is often based on the interdependencies of these relationships. For example, in Arctic Alaska historical dependencies on subsistence means that sharing the results of hunting across the community is vital for survival. While there is pride in being the family or team that brought in the harvest, it is and always has been known that another family or team may bring in the next harvest – therefore, a sharing, symbiotic relationship is required for the benefit of all. This emphasis on a codependent community relationship often translates into similar expectations of other relationships and an expectation that is key to a successful industrial development in the Arctic.
Considering the Social Program Design
Any social program design should examine the history and experience of development in the local area, as this shows commitment and identifies both resistance to a project and the conditions within which the social engagement may occur. Considering the impacts of employment on the community is important and ensures the opportunity to train and utilize a local workforce which may not have previously had such employment or career opportunities. A careful and thoughtful introduction of the project to the community is also critical, as is understanding previous development efforts, working with the community to assess options to involve and deploy community members, identifying potential community partnerships, and managing the impacts of the project in early stages.
Designing the Decision-Making Processes
Honesty and transparency are deeply valued among the local and Indigenous groups in the Arctic but remain an ongoing challenge for industrial developers. To manage the transparency, the industry must define “points-of-no-return” where the industry cannot retract or renege on locally-beneficial decisions or commitments, be honest about the realities and limitations of the project, understand the historical experiences that other developers have experienced (patterns of behavior/reaction to impacts), choose the right community/social interface team, clearly articulate and apply the UN’s Human Rights requirement of Free Prior and Informed Consent by obtaining consent for any activities as a good approach for local communities, and communicate, communicate, communicate with each impacted group. This also includes the community having the option of previewing any community reporting that will be published by the project.
Structuring to Support Long-Term Commitments
There are expectations of consistency within the development leadership of the community relationship, where the relationship is not one that is visited occasionally nor one that changes people out frequently as they advance in their careers. Creating industrial relationships that support the community and the development over a multi-year timeframe is required; this means engagement with community representation during the front-end loading and planning processes, not just prior to development of direct field/community impact. It also means engaging with consistent relationships and faces at all stages of the project development lifecycle and planning accordingly. Bluntly, the same, consistent faces from the development and communications teams should remain throughout the development projects.
In the Arctic, the work, where possible, is concentrated in the summer months to avoid harsh winter conditions and the limitations on the building aspects of development. However, best practices in relationship building suggest that certain work can and often should be scheduled for the winter months as well, including year-round social study programs. There may be more local presence or in-home residence during the colder months, and there may also be more time availability from local groups. There also can be less impacts on hunters in the field at certain points during the winter.
Building Longer-Term Capacity
A long-term view of a relationship also means capacity building over time. Consideration should be given to the local workforce inheriting jobs and management positions, thereby creating a sustainable workforce and presence despite possible unexpected development disruptions (such as pandemic-related field abandonment for expats, others). The design of a program of local employment must reflect the cultural makeup of the community, including jobs to local and Indigenous Peoples. This should not mean lower-level jobs only (i.e. janitorial, logistical movement), but should focus on existing capability (experience with similar industry, education, etc.) plus trainable skills (with potentially multi-month training efforts). It should also include recovery planning for local delays, misunderstandings, and work stoppages.
Principle 2: Deploying Frequent Community Listening Studies
As mentioned, community listening studies are key to Arctic Social Engagements, as they are the fundamental intertwining of respect, inclusion, relationship development, and management of impacts on the community. Leveraging existing studies, community guidance documents, indigenous knowledge, and community science will also inform the design. In addition, out of these listening sessions official and unofficial community leaders will emerge. As familiarity with these leaders grows, a joint community and industry decision-making body can be created that will oversee some of the critical social impact decision-making of the project.
Balancing Community Listening Study Design Considerations
Designing the community listening study appropriately means paying attention to special community subgroups such as the elders for their historical knowledge and hopes for the younger generation, and the youth groups for their vision for the future of the community. This balance considers the current cultural values; the knowledge of the ancient values that may be illustrated by community folklore, legends, and mythology; and options for the future of the community.
Varying the Methods of Listening
At different points in the development project, different methods of listening may be required, shifting between large group conversations, small focus groups on specialty topics, and conducting one-on-one interviews may be optimal. Starting with a series of larger group conversations can usually outline the topics and directions that are important to the local and Indigenous Peoples, as well as identify and communicate topics and directions that are of concern to the development company. Small groups focusing on specific topics such as the subsistence lifestyle can be critical for addressing the challenges of those specific topics. One-on-one interviews also allow for conversations that explore, in depth, a subject or a perspective and its application to the development.
The cultural relationship to time should also be considered, particularly when scheduling community listening events. In some Arctic cultures, the extremes of weather have created a relationship to time that is more thoughtful and social than a busy business-exacting relationship. This more relaxed perception of time and adherence to deadlines requires that schedules are developed with time buffers included, not the tight, back-to-back schedules or expectations that can be found in a corporate center.
Principle 3: Monitoring Impacts of and on Development
One of the most significant challenges to Arctic development is in monitoring and managing the expected and unexpected impacts of the development itself. There are physical, social, and cultural arenas to manage, as well as cumulative historical and ongoing industrial impacts to evaluate. This is a perfect spot for a mixed committee of industrial development and community advisors to oversee and aid in decision-making.
Planning for the Uniqueness of the Physical Arctic
While the impacts on the physical environment may be considered more predictable, the extreme Arctic weather conditions may make them quite unpredictable, impacting issues such as equipment transportation within and outside (such as hunting territories) the community boundaries; land erosion over time, which may include the impacts of melting permafrost resulting in methane release and land collapse; changes to animal migration or hibernation patterns; changes in ice movements (e.g. closer or further from shore); increased variation in annual weather patterns (from unseasonably warm to unseasonably cold); weather-impacted availability of community resources (such as water, food, other staples); weather-related impacts on equipment causing expansion or contraction; unanticipated corrosion of materials due to weather fluctuations; inability to move replacement materials in from other locations; local illnesses impacting the availability of workers; delays due to uncovering of historically buried pollutants or contaminants; delays in uncovering an archeological find (which may also require a collective urgency to address the find, as it can ‘disappear’ with an unexpected weather event); and other uniquely Arctic physical impacts.
Managing local traffic patterns and disruptions is one of the most common local cumulative impacts. Building new roads on the delicate Arctic tundra may not be an option due not only to the environmental and species impacts, but also due to scarcity of effective road building materials such as gravel. There may also be a need to constantly rebuild roads that originate on shifting and continuously eroding dirt and mud, particularly where the roads are near the ocean and frequently eroded by water and ice impacts.
Understanding the Limitations of the Community Footprint
The remoteness of the Arctic community can also result in unusual or unexpected community impacts, such as scarcity of resources. The ability of the Arctic community to absorb or adapt to the influx of workers, particularly workers from outside the local community, should be understood. Impacts on local resources such as shipped-in food and water, limited restaurants and housing, limited winter or even Arctic summer clothing, wastewater and trash services, and medical and other treatment services, must be thought through. For instance, it should be anticipated that an individual development project may be shifting/displacing people from their homes, where there are families doubling up in existing housing so they can take in high rents offered by the outside workers.
Situations of genuine scarcity can also have ripple effects within the community, causing local wellness issues and exacerbating pre-existing social problems such as alcohol and drug misuse. Additionally, in unexpected extreme Arctic weather both on land and sea, impacts can also be found on the local and limited search and rescue groups; in dire emergencies industrial development entities will naturally turn to the Arctic expertise found in the local search and rescue teams. One of the first of local community investments should be in these groups, as mitigation against unpredictable and unanticipated impacts from the Arctic emergencies.
Principle 4: Identifying Social Opportunities
Planning for and anticipating positive impacts after the industrial development project is complete is one of the best social opportunities in industrial development, particularly when local community members are an active part of that foresightful planning effort. As discussed, longer-term contributions to the economic development of the area means the potential of additional job and career opportunities for local individuals and families; additionally, the infrastructure needed to deliver industrial development can result in practical contributions that will support the ongoing and future needs of the community.
Detecting Opportunities in the Arctic Environs
In some of the uniquely Arctic challenges, there are also opportunities. In the remoteness of Arctic development, sharing between sometimes competitive development entities can occur with opportunities to borrow materials, equipment, or even personnel. This mirrors the local culture of sharing and is also reflected in the case of an emergency where everyone, in the development or community, pulls together to address the event without hesitation. Another opportunity emerges from the warming of the Arctic, the most noted one being the new routes created through the Northwest Passage which may not only alleviate resource transportation but can also increase economic benefit to local communities through increased visitors to the area.
Leveraging Local Expertise and Knowledge
One of the most significant potential social opportunities for both the industrial development and the community is the opportunity to leverage the great depth of local environmental, ecological, or species knowledge which goes back across millennia and has been handed down and taught in the oral tradition. The consequence of not leveraging this specialized knowledge can, quite literally, be fatal, as Arctic explorers and developers have learned the hard way. Examples of this knowledge range from reading and predicting weather patterns, identifying where the polar bears are hibernating, knowledge of shifts to migration patterns, and, quite significantly, ways to survive the unpredictable weather and extreme environment.
Planning for the Development Legacy
Working closely with the local community from the earliest days of the development can help ensure the creation of a long-term legacy. Designing the development with the ability to identify and build local talent through school and specialized programs, understanding the building and facility needs of the community, preserving reusable and limited local resources such as gravel, and considering long-term economic and social possibilities (such as the potential for hydroponic farming in abandoned shipping containers) will honor the traditional values of community benefit sharing and build upon them. Clearly identifying and meeting a community need will ensure that the community not only benefits from the project but has a clear stake in the outcome. Opportunities to create enduring local infrastructure that can be used to support local arts, artists, and traditional cultural events and ceremonies make a statement of the established joint values of the community and the development.
Another part of the positive local impacts of development projects may include the introduction of new and reusable technologies that will eventually be owned by the community. Gathering social inputs, deploying less distancing interview techniques (such as automating the recording of interviews rather than disrupting the interview through interviewer note taking), and sending out periodic community surveys, make a useful and reusable library of information. However, the interference of the Arctic, such as freezing of technologies used outside, should be planned for, particularly as replacing frozen and damaged equipment can be difficult. Co-designing the development’s legacy with the local and Indigenous Peoples can be a great experience for all involved.
Conclusion
In summary, there are multiple lessons learned to be found in previous Arctic experiences, lessons which have often been learned the hard way. When industrial development in the Arctic is broached with “eyes wide open,” then the true operational value of development can be assessed and understood. By deploying the best practice principles in Arctic Social Engagements, many of the downsides of development in an extreme environment can be avoided, and the contributions of industrial development can positively contribute to the local community and the local and Indigenous Peoples.
Linda Brewer (T-3 Strategies LLC) grew up in Utqiaġvik, Alaska and has served as an Arctic Project Manager, Project Design, Arctic Village Engagement, and balancing Western Science and Traditional Knowledge, Indigenous Communities, and proactively managing oil and gas and mining community impacts. Edith Vorderstrasse (Inuit Visions LLC) is an Alaska Native and Iñupiaq from Utqiaġvik, Alaska, with a life-long understanding of the language, traditional knowledge of hunting and gathering, and seasonal differences in species habitats and availability.