Thank you to the chair and to the members for the opportunity to speak about my research in the Canadian Arctic on climate change impacts.

I'm a Canada excellence research chair in global change ecology of northern ecosystems at the University of British Columbia. I've been working in the Arctic for two decades. Today I'd like to share some reflections on how Arctic research is changing and needs to shift in future as the inclusivity of research changes and climate change impacts accelerate.

I want to start by talking about how the north is experiencing accelerating change and what would have previously been considered extremes are now becoming the new normal.

For example, last summer, 2023, in the western Arctic, we experienced a heat wave in July. Temperatures were around five degrees warmer than the historic maximum temperatures on Qikiqtaruk—Herschel Island on the Yukon Arctic coast, where I work.

After this heat wave, we observed widespread permafrost disturbance, including the formation of 750 landslides, influencing about 1% of this island in just one year. This island has some of the most ice-rich permafrost in the Canadian Arctic and around the circumpolar Arctic, and it has always experienced permafrost disturbances and coastal erosion, but the rates and magnitudes of thaw are accelerating dramatically.

This past summer was also dominated by forest fires, leading to the evacuation of communities within the Northwest Territories. Our research program was threatened with being shut down due to forest fires and the evacuations happening to the south of us. For my research program, permafrost thaw, flooding and forest fires are making it increasingly difficult to study the impacts of climate change.

I collaborate with Inuvialuit and first nations communities, government agencies and different academic researchers to understand how vegetation change is influencing the Arctic, including increases in plants, more shrubs and earlier growing seasons, and how all of that is influencing habitats for wildlife and livelihoods for people.

One example of this collaboration is the porcupine caribou knowledge hub, funded by Canada's strategic science fund through a network now called Braiding Knowledges Canada.

There are five challenges that I would like to raise today.

The first is the importance of including Inuvialuit, Inuit and first nations in the research collaborations. To understand climate change impacts, research is required across different scales, from place-based research that informs local management and adaptation through to circumarctic research that informs earth system models. As the funding models shift, we need to consider all the different types of research and the different types of collaborations required for that next phase of Arctic research following indigenous and global research priorities.

Second, I want to talk about the increased costs of Arctic research and the importance of logistical support. My research program depends on logistical support through programs like the polar continental shelf program and the NSERC northern research supplements, and the logistical support provided by research stations and institutes. As we enhance our collaborations with indigenous partners, our research and logistical costs increase, thus additional funding is required. A lot of these programs aren't providing adequate funding to cover those logistical costs right now.

I also want to talk about the broad sharing of research findings while incorporating factors such as indigenous data sovereignty. As we form a better understanding of climate change impacts around the Arctic, a challenge for researchers is to get that information back to the people who need that information to make decisions. Often our research funding doesn't cover that full cycle of costs from the co-production of the research questions through to the communication of those findings to broad audiences and the archiving of data. That funding model needs to change.

I also want to touch on building research capacity within the Arctic and bringing people together. New tools such as drones are reshaping how we conduct Arctic research and monitoring. Indigenous guardian programs and different research teams are using the same tools and, by bringing researchers together, we can increase capacity within the north. An example of this is the Yukon drone workshop that we held in the second week of May of this year that brought first nations, government agencies and academic researchers together to share expertise.

The final point I want to make is about the influence of geopolitical events on increased international collaboration. Collaborative research within the Russian Arctic has stopped, and international research teams are pivoting their research programs often towards the Canadian Arctic. New funding opportunities, such as Canada joining the EU horizon program and the NordForsk program, will facilitate even more Arctic research within Canada, but this increased research activity is putting more pressure on indigenous communities. Many of these indigenous communities have capacity issues to engage with this increased research pressure.

Future funding programs should particularly consider how to alleviate the impacts on indigenous communities of the required increased research within the Canadian Arctic.

Thank you very much.