Polar bears, cross-sector partnerships and sustainable tourism

Climate change and the plight of polar bears are argued to be inter-related. This issue involves different aspects of Arctic governance including international instruments such as The United Nations Convention on the Law of... [ view full abstract ]

Climate change and the plight of polar bears are argued to be inter-related. This issue involves different aspects of Arctic governance including international instruments such as The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Kyoto Protocol, regional bodies like the Arctic Council and specific instruments including, and the 1973 International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears and Their Habitat and other regulatory measures from national authorities (from the eight sovereign Arctic States) (Jeffers, 2010). Broad Arctic governance forms the context within which local entities operate. This landscape has been criticized for being fragmented and lacking efficient decision-making processes for effective management (Clark et al, 2008).

This research seeks to understand a specific cross sector partnership between a prominent commercial enterprise, operating in Churchill Canada, Frontiers North Adventures (FNA) and an NGO, Polar Bear International (BPI). It explores how this partnership co-exists within the broader legal, political and regulatory environment from the specific lens of ‘sustainable tourism’.

A case study approach is taken due to the focused, contemporary context of the research. Criticisms of the case study approach largely relate to the inability to generalize findings (Tellis, 1997) and (Hamel et al, 1993). The unique context of this research negates this criticism and this case study contributes knowledge and understanding of real life events within an organisational context with managerial processes (Sommer and Sommer, 2002). Outcomes from case studies whilst remain analytically generalizable (Welsh and Lyons, 2001). This case study involves methods including: literature review, legal instrument review and semi-structured interviews (Flick, 2009). The respondents of the semi structured interviews have been selected using purposive sampling (Atlinay and Paraskevas 2008), (Bryman, 2014) and (Yin, 2011). Interviews were completed with all senior staff in both organisations along with other significant stakeholders including Parks Canada and local indigenous community representatives.

The paper outlines the unique characteristics of the FNA/PBI partnership with implications for polar ‘sustainable tourism’ and Arctic governance. It concludes that the findings for this cross-sector partnership are not easily generalizable to other contexts although there are some key principles that might be considered ‘success markers’.