Learn about the Arctic Program's vision for healthy Arctic ecosystems that support the cultural, social, and economic needs of the people living there, and that protect the diversity of Arctic life.

ArcNet is a network of priority areas for marine conservation that spans the entire Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. Conserving these ecosystems strengthens the resilience of Arctic biodiversity in the face of a rapidly changing climate. Learn what role we all can play in protecting the arctic in this brochure.

WWF has developed ArcNet—a network of priority areas for marine conservation—across the entire Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. The network is based on comprehensive, rigorous scientific analysis and best-available data. ArcNet reflects the web of marine life and ecological functions across a connected ocean that underpins the diverse values of people in the region and beyond.

The dramatic decline of the summer sea ice and increasing industrialization in the Arctic threaten to significantly impact such important marine areas. In this updated report on the Bering Strait, WWF experts present several measures that will help ensure safe and environmentally sound shipping in the region by addressing increasing threats of growing vessel traffic.

Offshore oil and gas drilling in the Arctic is a disastrous idea. It would lead to the release of millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere at a time when we should be cutting emissions. There’s also the near-certain risk of spills. This infographic lays out the detailed case for keeping the oil under the sea.

Climate change is already changing the Arctic, and current carbon reduction commitments will not be enough to stop this transformation cold. This executive summary of a July 2016 Columbia Climate Center workshop details why global leaders must focus on helping the region adapt and accelerate a reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Climate change is already changing the Arctic, and current carbon reduction commitments will not be enough to stop this transformation cold. Instead, world leaders must focus on helping the region adapt and accelerate a reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This paper summarizes the outcomes of this workshop and highlights how world leaders can move forward.

WWF’S Rapid Assessment of Circus-Arctic Ecosystem Resilience (RACER) presents a new tool for identifying and mapping places of conservation importance throughout the Arctic. This introductory handbook is intended as a general roadmap to the RACER method. It describes the approach and its use of the best available data to create maps of arctic key features as targets for future conservation efforts.

Promoting science and stewardship in Bering, Beaufort, Chukchi and Okhotsk Seas

This factsheet details basic facts about polar bears, the key threats to their existence, and WWF’s solutions and actions for protecting polar bears’ Arctic habitat from climate change, industrial threats and other harmful human activities.

This brochure shows how the addition of offshore oil and gas activities greatly compromise the potential for right whale populations to recover from endangerment of extinction.

This fact sheet explains the current statistics and facts about polar bears and their habitat, asserting that, based on conservative estimates on sea ice shrinkage rates, two-thirds of the polar bear population would become extinct by 2050.

This fact sheet details the largest issues facing the Arctic as a result of climate change, including the melting of permafrost and the subsequent release of methane and CO2, and provides an overview of how they negatively impact Arctic vegetation and the ability for Arctic species to survive.

Climate change adds new threats to fish species over and above those posed by pollution, overexploitation and other factors. The largest threats are rising water temperatures that reduce the growth rates and survival, ocean acidification killing coral reefs, sea changes caused by thawing ice and ocean current disturbances.

This brochure explains how oil and gas drilling is expected to bring in approximately $7.7 billion over the 25-40 years experts believe it will take to extract these finite resources from Bristol Bay and the North Aleutian Basin.

This fact sheet demonstrates the need for international guidelines for protecting marine environments in light of increasing offshore development and its potentially adverse effects on the Arctic marine environment.

This fact sheet outlines WWF’s five-pronged approach to understanding and managing the Arctic

This report examines the gap that exists between the growing threat of a major oil spill in the Arctic and the capacity that exists to respond to it.

A Review of U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) “Arctic Oil Spill Response Research and Development Program – A Decade of Achievement.”