The greatest challenge there is money and infrastructure. Other groups could certainly do the work if government were willing to provide the work. So a good example is the polar continental shelf project of Natural Resources Canada, set in Resolute in the Arctic. Fundamentally—and it's something I've personally taken advantage of as an Arctic researcher—this is a base that provided everything from planes to helicopters to boats to gasoline, in order for researchers to work in the Arctic. So the Arctic is a great example of a place where, in the absence of government infrastructure support, Canadian scientists and researchers and ENGOs simply will not be able to do the work on their own.
So I think government at a minimum has to provide that financial and infrastructure basis to allow either government scientists or others to do some of the monitoring work.