- The Arctic is defined as the area north of the Arctic Circle (66° 33’N), including the North Pole.
- The region covers some 30 million km2 of marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
- The Arctic is the only place where polar bears live; penguins do not live here, they only live in the southern hemisphere, including Antarctica.
- Unlike Antarctica, people live within the Arctic Circle.
- Average winter temperatures in the Arctic can be as low as -40°C (-40°F).
- The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the five oceans of the world, and includes the Northwest Passage, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea and other bodies of water.
- The Titanic struck an iceberg from the Arctic.
The Arctic
Bad news for bears as sea ice shrinks
WWF is concerned for polar bear populations in the Arctic, including those we are following on the WWF-Canon Polar Bear Tracker, after a National Snow and Ice Data Centre report that Arctic sea ice reached new record lows in the month of June.
Follow polar bears on our tracker | More on polar bears
New Arctic: New rules
A new, warmer Arctic cannot continue to operate under rules that assume it is ice-covered and essentially closed to fishing, resource exploration and development and shipping, WWF said as it launched a group of reports on protecting a newly accessible, highly vulnerable environment with profound significance for global climate, the global economy and global security.
Download the full report: International Governance and Regulation of the Marine Arctic [pdf, 1.99 MB]
Download the brochure: Reforming Arctic governance [pdf, 1.20 MB]
Video interview: Lasse Gustavson, WWF Executive conservation director
Video: Arctic governance press conference
More on reforming Arctic marine governance
Fresh from our blog...
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31 Aug 2010
Meghann’s memories: Tribal Journey to Makah 2010
The Journeys to Makah 2010 was an event designed to promote Indigenous cultural knowledge: acknowledging inter-tribal connections, honouring elders, ...
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31 Aug 2010
Janelle’s journal: Tribal Journey to Makah 2010
The Journeys to Makah 2010 was an event designed to promote Indigenous cultural knowledge: acknowledging inter-tribal connections, honouring elders, ...
Latest News
Canada announces new arctic foreign policy
Canada has announced a new arctic foreign policy which contains several encouraging signs for the future of governance in the Arctic.
New US oceans policy leading the way for planning in arctic waters
The United States has adopted a National Oceans Policy that means decisions about what can happen in the US portion of the arctic ocean will undergo better planning and deeper scrutiny.
What WWF is doing
About the top of the world
Consisting of deep ocean covered by drifting pack ice and surrounded by continents and archipelagos around the Earth's North Pole, the Arctic is the planet's largest and least fragmented inhabited region.Shared between Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States, it is home to several million people, many of them Indigenous, and provides a rich habitat to a vast array of animals, including the polar bear, arctic fox, and walrus as well as many species of seals, whales and birds.
It stores the world's largest freshwater reserves in its glaciers and offers a wealth of natural resources, especially fossil fuels and fisheries.
An uncertain future
From overfishing and toxic pollution to oil and gas exploration, the Arctic is under threat. Yet there is one single threat that outweighs them all: climate change.Global warming in the Arctic is expected to be two or three times greater than the rest of the world. Even a slight shift in temperature could potentially result in an ice-free Arctic within this century, threatening arctic communities and animals as well as the entire planet.
WWF Reports
It's not too late
WWF is working with its many partners – governments, business and communities – across the Arctic to combat these threats and preserve the region’s rich biodiversity.
Conservation efforts include a combination of actions ranging from protected area management and public awareness campaigns to promoting national, regional and international advocacy work.- We provide up-to-date and reliable information on the effects of climate change in the Arctic and support actions to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- We persuade governments to go over and above existing commitments for arctic environmental protection.
- We aim to reduce or eliminate direct threats to biodiversity from oil and gas development, encouraging large-scale investments into renewable energy rather than new hydrocarbon projects.
- We work with fishermen to protect of the world’s richest and most productive remaining fisheries from illegal fishing.
- We protect key arctic species and habitats.
Tracking polar bears in the Arctic
Polar bears, the world's largest terrestrial carnivore, spend much of their lives on the arctic sea ice.
But with their habitat melting at an alarming rate as a result of global warming, scientists believe that they will be vulnerable to extinction within the next century.
To ensure their future, the WWF-Canon Polar Bear Tracking Programme is charting polar bear movements throughout the Arctic, giving insight into how they behave in their natural environment and how they are being affected by climate change.
The information is used to help conservationists find solutions to better protect this threatened species.
But with their habitat melting at an alarming rate as a result of global warming, scientists believe that they will be vulnerable to extinction within the next century.
To ensure their future, the WWF-Canon Polar Bear Tracking Programme is charting polar bear movements throughout the Arctic, giving insight into how they behave in their natural environment and how they are being affected by climate change.
The information is used to help conservationists find solutions to better protect this threatened species.
Where is the Arctic?
There are several definitions of the Arctic region as illustrated by the map below.
