Support to arrange a workshop at the 6th international arctic fox conference in Longyearbyen, Svalbard 2020

The 6th international workshop/conference in arctic fox biology will for the first time be organized and located in Norway in Longyearbyen, Svalbard on August 26-29, 2022. Circumpolar arctic fox biologists have since 1991, established a network that have arranged five international conferences in arctic fox biology. At the last meeting in Canada in 2017, Norway was selected as the next host country for the conference and that it should be held in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. We expect up to 150 participants from 11 different countries to take part in the workshop/conference. This is the most important meeting point for arctic fox scientists, conservation managers, policy makers, tour operators and students. By the workshop the first day we want to open for a broad (holistic) discussion about the management of Arctic fox as it includes trade-offs between conservation, sustainable harvesting, increased tourism and efficient control of dangerous zoonotic diseases (as rabies and Echinococcus multilocularis). These are all aspects that are of importance for the society in Svalbard, for Norway in general, and for the circumpolar Arctic. By bringing together a large number of international arctic fox scientists the workshop can bring new perspectives from “the outside” on issues that presently are specific to Svalbard, but that may be more common also in other places in the Arctic in the near future. The project will promote international visibility of environmental research and ecosystem management in Svalbard. The outcome will contribute to increase the scientific cooperation within terrestrial research in Svalbard, increase the coordination of monitoring concerning the arctic fox and drivers of its population dynamics and trends and provide to open sharing of data through the multi-authored circumpolar arctic fox paper that will be an important end product of the workshop.