Over the past 10 years, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) has conducted two major assessments  of  the  pollution  status  of  the Arctic.  These  have documented the sources,  levels  and  trends, and effects of a wide range of contaminants, including mercury. The main conclusions of these assessments
are that: “In comparison with most other areas of the world, the Arctic remains a clean environment. However, for some pollutants, combinations of different factors give rise to concern in certain ecosystems and for some human populations. These circumstances sometimes occur on a local scale, but in some cases may be
regional or circumpolar in extent.”    In  response  to  the  AMAP  findings,  the  Arctic  Council  Action  Plan  to Eliminate Pollution of the Arctic (ACAP) was initiated. Mercury is one of the priority pollutants that have been selected for action under ACAP, and in 2001 the project "Reduction of Atmospheric Mercury Releases from Arctic States" was launched.