Throughout the Arctic there is substantial concern about climate change and the effects upon the arctic ecosystem, which is the basis for most of the people and societies in the arctic. The arctic council has initiated multiple initiatives to monitor and investigate the environmental effects in the Arctic. Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) is one of the contributions from the Kingdom of Denmark, including Greenland. GEM consist of 6 sub-programmes and a number of strategic cross cutting initiatives that also includes collaboration with other complimentary operational monitoring and research activities.