Ecosystem Services in the Arctic: A pathway for better integration into policy making, management, and research.

Arctic ecosystems are undergoing unprecedented environmental and societal change, driven by accelerated climate warming and expanding human activities. These transformations alter key ecological processes, reshape biodiversity, and directly affect the well-being, food security, and cultural heritage of Arctic Indigenous peoples and local communities. Despite the growing urgency of these changes, the ecosystem services (ES) concept (now widely used in biodiversity conservation, land-use planning, and policy-making elsewhere) remains underdeveloped and underutilized in the Arctic. Only a small fraction of global ES assessments explicitly address Arctic systems, reflecting both conceptual misconceptions and structural barriers to uptake.

We argue that an appropriately adapted ES framework can provide an essential bridge between science, policy, and Indigenous and local priorities in the North. We identify three overarching reasons for the limited use of ES in the region: persistent misunderstandings of ES as primarily monetary valuation; fragmented, multi-level Arctic governance that limits coordinated policy integration; and existing ES frameworks that inadequately represent Arctic socio-ecological realities. Climate-driven ecological transitions, strong seasonal dynamics, and culturally embedded relationships with the land, all call for Arctic-specific approaches to ES assessment.

Building on the well-established MAES framework, we propose a revised, Arctic-tailored approach that embeds Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge throughout the assessment process, adapts ES classifications to reflect Arctic-specific values and ecosystem functions, and incorporates seasonality and rapid ecological change. We also highlight opportunities for improving governance uptake, including the potential of Arctic Council bodies such as CAFF and AMAP to support co-developed ES initiatives, enhanced collaboration with Indigenous rights-holders, and greater visibility of Arctic ES in science-policy platforms such as IPBES, as well as in international statistical and accounting frameworks like the SEEA-EA. Integrating an ES lens into Arctic biodiversity research and decision-making is both timely and necessary, and a co-developed, context-aware ES framework can support more inclusive dialogues at the science–policy–decision-making interface, strengthen intercultural understanding, and contribute to more sustainable actions in a rapidly changing Arctic.