The Community-based Observing Network for Adaptation and Security (CONAS) and the Bering Sea Sub Network (BSSN): Distributed Human Sensor Array for Arctic Environmental Change 2007-2016

The Bering Sea region is increasingly recognized as a hotspot of biological productivity, indigenous subsistence livelihoods, commercial activity, and environmental security. The need for observational data remains high as we struggle to understand the suite of changes occurring in the Arctic and the consequences these may have to the communities who reside there. This project developed the Community Observing Network for Adaptation and Security (CONAS) as a CBONS operating across the Bering Sea in partnership with Inupiaq, Siberian Yupiq, Chukchi, and Aleut communities and observers. CBONS are partnerships with local communities to establish trained and vetted local observers who are experienced hunters and fishers, respected in their community as possessing a high degree of awareness and knowledge of the local marine environment.

CONAS examined and documented environmental change in the Bering Sea and then used this as the basis to develop tools enabling communities to adapt to change. These tools include measures of vulnerability to environmental change along with measures of capacity to respond, also known as adaptive capacity indices. Adaptive capacity reflects both the sensitivity of community members to their environment and their ability to institute changes that make them less vulnerable to ongoing or sudden changes.