AMAP has existed since 1991 and is one of the six working groups under the Arctic Council. The Council is an intergovernmental body trying to co-operate on the challenges facing the Arctic in terms of the environment, social conditions and economy.
Among other things, AMAP's task is to monitor and assess how it is responsible for the pollution and climate change in the Arctic. They must advise and guide politicians and officials as well as produce evidence of the development of pollutants and climate change in the Arctic region. (Link to AMAP homepage: https://www.amap.no/)
A program under AMAP is the monitoring of long-range chemicals in the Greenland biota, AMAP CORE. It is a monitoring programme for measurement of contaminant concentrations, which have excisted since 1994. The purpose of the programme is to monitor contaminants in Greenland animals with the objective to follow the temporal trends. The programme includes also screening of contaminants of emergent concerns of selected samples and in some cases retrospective studies of these compounds. A special focus is on monitoring of temporal trends of effects and biomarkers in polar bears, which is one of the Arctic species that have the highest loads of pollutants.
Department of Environmental Science and Department of Bioscience have in close collaboration over the years made significant contributions to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), in particular AMAP Core. Within AMAP CORE, the department monitor a number of pollutants such as PCBs, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated substances, "old" chlorinated pesticides, such as DDT as well as Mercury. Furthermore, we have a strong focus on the development of screening studies of contaminants of emerging concern in the Arctic.
The institute plays a leading role in the AMAP POP international expert group (POP: Persistent Organic Pollutants), where we contribute, among other things, to the AMAP assessment reports, which collect and expertly assess the results of the monitoring of both traditional and new pollutants. (link to AMAP assessment reports: https://www.amap.no/about/the-amap-programme/amap-assessment-reports)
