The Northern Sciences Network of the Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a principal inter-disciplinary and circumpolar scientific activity of the United Nations in high northern latitudes. It is not a research programme as such, but a means to facilitate co-operation and co-ordination of research and monitoring, exchange of information and scientific communication in high latitude regions of the northern hemisphere. All areas of the natural and human sciences are included; the focus is on studies of the characteristics, responses and changes of ecosystems and related human activities in regions of low natural energy flux and distinctive annual patterns of solar radiation. The co-ordinated knowledge from these studies is significant not only to northern areas but to ecosystem responses and their human consequences in many parts of the world.

National Committees of UNESCO MAB of Canada, China, Denmark/Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States of America participate in the network, together with a representative of the Division of Ecological Sciences, UNESCO. Principal current activities include co-ordination of national and university studies of the dynamics of the Mountain Birch Forest Treeline Ecosystem of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Greenland, including publication of a compilation of reports on research in this subject over the past ten years; the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX), which undertakes in situ investigation of the response of tundra plant communities to environmental changes at selected sites in all circumpolar countries as well as comparable studies in alpine and sub-antarctic areas; development of a co-ordinated framework for simultaneous natural sciences and social sciences research into the sustainable management of terrestrial and marine living resources in arctic regions. Associated activities include study of the biogeophysical and socio-economic implications of climate changes in a sub-arctic mountain area, and international co-ordination of management issues and research in high-latitude Biosphere Reserves.

The Northern Sciences network serves as an information exchange on a wide range of inter-disciplinary and international scientific activities connected with natural resources global change, and human community responses in arctic regions. Principal vehicles for this exchange are the NSN Newsletter and ITEX Up-date, each published semi-annually and distributed to 35 countries and on-line, and the NSN Website, http://www.dpc.dk/Sites/Secretariat/NSN.html.

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