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Arctic Yearbook 2015
training to understand data and analyses. A visually appealing and easy-to-use tool can provide them
the information they need in a timely manner. For example, in conversations with Canadian shipping
companies it was mentioned that visualization tools would be particularly helpful for passing
knowledge on to new employees.
The main goal of this research was to find a way to visualize and understand the governance of
maritime activities by adapting pre-existing data visualization tools. Several projects are dedicated to
studying the stakeholders and governance of the Arctic. Unfortunately, when the projects terminate,
the maintenance of the associated tools do as well. There are also a number of relevant indexes and
bibliographies (e.g. The Arctic Governance Project, 2010),2 but they are unclear and difficult to access;
that is to say they are hard to find, they are not particularly user-friendly, and they do not provide any
kind of analysis. These tools are nevertheless valuable to those who are knowledgeable on the given
topic. However, they are not very useful to users who are not experts on the topic of interest.
Object of knowledge
The type of representation we are discussing can be compared, to a certain extent with Geographic
Information Systems (GIS). Many people want to use GIS or provide an online GIS platform, but
most of the time the result is a simple map with stacked layers of information and relatively little added
value. The added value lies where disciplines overlap and factors intersect; it is these aspects that make
the Arctic so unique. Recognizing the required interdisciplinarity of marine activities, the aim was to
incorporate the complexities of the system: the legal framework, issues related to Inuit traditional use
and cultural connectivity to the marine environment, security and defence aspects, safety concerns,
the unique climatic conditions, environmental considerations, natural resource development potential,
and economic trends. By providing a visualization tool the user is able to consider all the possible links
between the stakeholders in the Canadian Arctic as a result of common scale(s) of operations, shared
interests, or working relationships. By making the tool interactive, the user is able to see only the
information they are interested in, while still having access to the complete picture, thus simplifying
the visualization to a user-friendly format. We aim to create a “mediating object of knowledge”
(Kaplan, Fournier & Nuessli 2014); we want to provide a tool that is interactive and allows the user
to play and explore the structured information.
Stakeholder analysis
According to Grimble and Chan, a stakeholder analysis is “an approach and procedure for gaining an
understanding of a system by means of identifying the key actors or stakeholders in the system, and
assessing their respective interests in that system” (Grimble & Chan 1995). They also define a
stakeholder as an individual, a community, a social group, or an institution that affects and/or is
affected by the policies, decisions, and actions of the system. The system we are dealing with is that
of maritime traffic in the Canadian Arctic, which is the geographic region described in the Arctic Waters
Pollution Prevention Act (AWPPA 1985) as waters bound within the 60th parallel north, the 141st meridian
west, the equidistance line between the islands of the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, and a line
measured seaward from the nearest land a distance of 100 nautical miles (Figure 1). This definition
Maritime Activities in the Canadian Arctic