Norway
Large NATO exercise starts in Northern Norway
(BarentsObserver, 18 February 2010) -- Near 9,000 soldiers from 14 countries participates when the exercise Cold Response 2010 started in Northern Norway this week. This year is the first time such NATO exercise also includes Swedish territory. The exercise involves land forces, air forces and naval forces. The portal of the Norwegian Armed Forces reports that some 1,000 Special Forces soldiers will participate. Largest part of the activity will be in the northern part of Nordland County and the southern part of Troms County. The exercise Cold Response 2010 is said to be the highest priority for the Norwegian military this year. Cold Response 2010 has some 1,500 more soldiers than the exercise Cold Response 2009. The soldiers are not only from NATO member countries. Swedish soldiers participate and for the first time NATO’s Cold Response exercise includes military activity within Swedish territory. The territory in question is the area from Riksgrensen to Abisko in the municipality of Kiruna. Swedish Sami Radio reports that the Sami reindeer herders in the area are opposing the exercise claiming the military activity happens without first consulting the reindeer herders. Some 1,000 Swedish soldiers participate in Cold Response 2010. Sweden is cooperating with NATO through the Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme, but the background for Sweden’s participation in the exercise is the framework agreement for the Nordic Defence Cooperation, according to the portal of the Swedish Armed Forces. United Kingdom participates in the exercise with their largest warship, HMS Ocean. The vessel with its crew of 1.000 persons is operating in the region as part of the UK's Amphibious Task Group, according to the portal of the Royal Navy. Other forces include U.S. Marines, soldiers that see such exercise in Norway’s harsh Arctic winter environment as a realistic combat training opportunity, reports the portal of the US Marines. The last time U.S. Marines participated in such NATO exercise in Northern Norway was in 2005. All soldiers from the 14 participating countries will during the exercise focus on cold weather maritime/amphibious operations, interoperability of expeditionary forces, and special and conventional ground operations. Cold Response 2010 will go on until March 4th. Till now, the such NATO exercise in Northern Norway has been annually, but according to the portal of the Norwegian Armed Forces the larger NATO exercises will from now on be held each second year.
Posted 24 February 2010; 7:28:37 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Expeditions, field trips, tours, February10, Nordic Region, Norway
Population growth in northern Norway
(BarentsObserver, 19 February 2010) -- In 2009 northern Norway experienced the highest population growth since 1974. For thirty-five years northern Norway has had a steady decline in population, but last year the population grew by 2,196. It is the three northernmost counties of Norway, Nordland, Troms and Finmark that is defined as northern Norway. This is the most scarcely populated area of Norway, and there has been a steady decline in population through since the mid-70s. The latest population countings from Statistics Norway states that the negative demographic trend is beginning to turn. With the 2,196 new northern citizens, there were a total of 465,621 people living in the three northernmost counties on 1 January 2010. The largest county is Nordland with 236,271 inhabitants, while there are 156,494 inhabitants in Troms and 72,.856 inhabitants in Finnmark. All three counties had a population growth in 2009, and an important part of the growth is that the birth rate is also growing considerably. However, it is the most populated municipalities and the city centers which count for most of the population growth. Still the smaller remote communities suffer from depopulation.
Posted 21 February 2010; 6:59:21 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, February10, Norway, Social Issues
Arctic delegation of the Norwegian Parliament visits Ny-Alesund
(Kings Bay AS news release, 10 February 2010) -- On February 10, Kings Bay AS hosted a visit to Ny-Ålesund from the Norwegian Parliament's Arctic Delegation. The group arrived by helicopter from Longyearbyen in the morning, and was shortly after given a briefing about Kings Bay AS and Ny-Ålesund by the managing director of Kings Bay AS, Mr. Roger Jakobsen. Afterwards the delegation was given a guided tour of the Kings Bay Marine Lab by research adviser Mr. Bendik Eithun Halgunset. The visit at the marine lab also included a short stop in one of the labs where Ms Silke Lischka (University of Kiel, Germany) described her project focusing on effects of ocean acidification on sea butterflies (pteropods). Before lunch, the group thereafter visited the AWIPEV-base and attended the launch of the weather balloon at 12.00. Station leader Mr. Marcus Schumacher introduced the visitors to the research activities at AWIPEV. A visit to the information centre and the shop was included after lunch, before the delegates could attend a presentation of the Norwegian Polar Institute by Ms Dorothea Schultze and professor Dr. Johan Ström. At the end of the stay, the delegation visited the Geodetic Observatory of the Norwegian Mapping Authority at Rabben. Mr. Carl Petter Nielsen guided the group through the Observatory and the measurements done. Information director Mr. Terje Dahlen gave the parliamentarians thorough insight into VLBI and geodesy, as well as the ambitions to construct new antennas in Ny-Ålesund within 2015. Mr. Dahlen pointed out the importance and impact a fibre optical cable between Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund will have for the community in general both when it comes to safety, but also for the research community specifically with regard to reliability and data transfer capacity. The delegation returned to Longyearbyen by helicopter, and is expected to bring back valuable impressions and ideas for political discussion and decision making at the Parliament in Oslo.
Posted 21 February 2010; 1:08:51 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Expeditions, field trips, tours, February10, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Svalbard Treaty is 90 years old
(Birger Amundsen/Svalbardposten, 9 February 2010) -- Today, 90 years ago the Svalbard Treaty was signed in Paris. ... Svalbard Treaty was signed on 14 February 1920 and came into force, was ratified, 14 August 1925.
Posted 11 February 2010; 11:42:37 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Celebrations, Circumpolar News, February10, Governance, International, Laws and legal, Norway
(Rolleiv Solholm/NRK via The Norway Post, 30 January 2010) -- Arctic weather has settled over Northern Norway, and the cold, drifitng snow and icy winds have created problems for traffic on both land and sea as well as in the air in the counties of Finnmark and Troms. In the low temperatures both ferries and passenger boats quickly ice down, resulting in cancellations. Driving conditions are difficult, and several roads are open only to convoys. The cold weather is moving south along the coast during the weekend.
Posted 30 January 2010; 11:12:50 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, January10, Norway
Greenpeace calls for Arctic Ocean drilling ban
(Greenpeace International press release via Scoop New Zealand, 25 January 2010) -- Tromsø, Norway - Greenpeace is calling for an immediate moratorium on all activity by extractive industries in the Arctic Ocean, as representatives from oil companies, governments and scientists meet to discuss the future of the region at the Arctic Frontiers Conference (25-29 January) in Tromsø, Norway. Greenpeace Nordic Executive Director Mads Flarup Christensen will address the conference plenary on Tuesday 26 January. The moratorium needs to cover the part of the Arctic Ocean that has historically been covered by sea ice and remain in place until a permanent international agreement is established, similar to the agreement that protects the Antarctic. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arctic Ocean seabed contains over 20% of the world’s fossil fuel resources. With the urgent need to cut carbon emissions drastically and avert catastrophic climate change, these must stay underground. Scientists from Greenpeace’s summer 2009 Arctic ice expedition will present their preliminary findings on their research on the impacts of climate change in the Arctic, demonstrating the impacts of climate change are taking place faster than predicted The conference will be attended by Greenpeace campaigners from Norway, Denmark and the United States.
Posted 24 January 2010; 9:52:10 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conferences, Education and Civil Society, International, January10, Norway
Oil spills do more damage in the North
(Rolleiv Solholm/NRK via The Norway Post, 24 January 2010) -- An oil spill in the far North will do more damage to the environment than a spill further south. The reason is that the eco-systems in the North are more vulnerable, a new scientific report shows. The report is made by the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) for the Directorate for Nature Management (DN), and is part of the background material to be used when the Government will be discussing the administration plan for the waters around Lofoten and in the Barents Sea. The Lofoten-Barents waters contain some of the world's largest fish stocks, rare coral reefs and other marine life, as well as some of the largest collections of sea birds. The new report confirms much of what has been previous information. "Today's knowledge tells us that it would not be advisable to open up for oil drilling off the coast of Lofoten and Vesterålen," says Lars Haltbrekken, leader of Friends of the Earth Norway (Norges Naturvernforbund).
Posted 24 January 2010; 10:55:10 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, Environment and Landscape, January10, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources
Most Norwegians want Arctic drilling study: survey
(Wojciech Moskwa/Reuters, 14 January 2010) -- OSLO - An industry-backed survey published on Thursday shows most Norwegians favor an impact study that could pave the way to open a pristine, fish-rich Arctic area to oil activities and prolong Norway's energy boom. The oil industry says the waters near the Lofoten and Vesteraalen islands in the Arctic now have the most prospects off Norway and must be tapped to prolong the North Sea state's oil bonanza as output from mature oilfields declines. Environmentalists say that any spill in the unspoiled region would be disastrous for its diverse eco-system, which includes unique cold water reefs, pods of sperm whales and killer whales, some of the largest seabird colonies in Europe as well as being the spawning grounds of the largest cod stock in the world. A number of opinion polls over past months suggest that Norwegians are split nearly down the middle on Arctic drilling and the issue was a major theme in last year's general election. The survey by pollster Synovate, carried out for the oil industry lobby group OLF, shows that seven out of 10 Norwegians want the authorities to conduct an impact study of how oil and gas exploration would affect the Lofoten region. "For us, this is a confirmation of our position that the impact assessment is reasonable," OLF chief Gro Braekken said in a statement publishing the results of the survey. Two small parties in the government — the Socialist Left and the Center Party — are against drilling, but the main Labour Party has not yet made up its mind.
Posted 17 January 2010; 12:49:40 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic issues, January10, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources
Pictures: Various views of the Arctic
(Claire O'Neill/The Picture Show - NPR, 15 January 2010) -- Olaf Otto Becker goes out of his way to make a photograph. He'll travel up to 10 hours carrying his weight in equipment to find the right location — then maybe even wait a few more hours for the right light. He's also using a large format film camera, which is pretty much the furthest thing from convenient. His photos of Greenland accompany Celine Clanet's series from Norway, currently at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Ore. While Becker, who was trained as a painter, is interested in making visual documentation of a changing environment, Clanet is interested in people: her project documents Sami — people indigenous to Maze, a small Norwegian village above the Arctic Circle with a population of about 350.
Posted 15 January 2010; 11:57:02 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arts and Artists, Circumpolar News, Greenland, January10, Norway, Photography
Polar bear poo helps in superbug hunt
(Ben Hirschler/Reuters, 14 January 2010) -- LONDON - Polar bear droppings are helping scientists shed light on the spread of deadly antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Bacteria such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are a growing problem in hospitals and researchers are anxious to understand how they evolve. Norwegian researchers said they had found little sign of such microbes in the feces of polar bears in the remote Arctic, suggesting the spread of resistance genes seen in the droppings of other animals may be due to human influence. In contrast to the results from polar bears on the Svalbard archipelago, antibiotic resistance has been discovered in a range of animals including deer, foxes, pigs, dogs and cats that live close to humans. Trine Glad of the University of Tromsø said her team's research, published on Thursday in the journal BMC Microbiology, was important evidence in the debate as to whether resistance occurs naturally or is caused by exposure to human antibiotics. The rise of superbugs is prompting some drug companies to look again at antibiotics, a field that has been neglected in recent years. Both AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis have signed new antibiotic research collaborations this week.
Posted 14 January 2010; 8:33:29 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, January10, Norway, Research
(Svalbardposten, 13 January 2010) -- An earthquake, measuring between 4.5 and 5 on the Richter scale, struck Storfjorden, between Spitsbergen and Edgøya, today at 11:08 am. "We have not yet analyzed the earthquake and can not say exactly where in Storfjorden it had its center," said seismologist Tormod Kværne of Norsar at Kjeller. Kværne also said that the quake was only detected by instruments, which are located on Janson Haugen in Adventdalen, in Ny-Ålesund, Hopen and Hornsund. "We have not had calls from people who felt the shake. If anyone should have known something it would be the crew of the Polish research station in Hornsund," he said. [See more about the earthquake here from NORSAR, an independent geo-scientific research foundation established in 1968, specializing in software solutions and research activities in the fields of applied seismic and seismology.]
Posted 13 January 2010; 9:54:08 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Disasters, etc., Environment and Landscape, January10, Norway
Russian musical to open Tromsø International Film Festival
(BarentsObserver, 8 January 2010) -- The Russian rock musical “Hipsters” (Stilyagi) will be the opening movie at the 2010 Tromsø International Film Festival. The Hollywood reporter calls Hipsters “a visually stunning and energetic musical satirizing repression in the Soviet Union”. The movie won the 2009 Nika Award (Russia’s answer to the Oscar) for best film, best cinematography, costume design and sound editing. Tromsø International Film Festival (TIFF) has had an incredible growth since it first commenced in 1991 and is now the largest film festival in Norway. The total of admissions in 1991 was 5,200 — in 2009 it was 48 258. TIFF 2010 includes more than 100 movies on 12 screens. A popular sidebar at the festival is Films from the North – a special program for shorts and documentaries from the Barents region and other circumpolar areas. Tromsø International Film Festival is set in the dark polar nights, which give's TIFF the unique possibility to screen films outdoor. The outdoor cinema is located at the main square in the heart of Tromsø. TIFF 2010 takes place January 18-24. [Read the program for TIFF 2010. See trailer for “Hipsters” on YouTube.]
Posted 10 January 2010; 11:50:56 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arts and Artists, Circumpolar News, Conferences, January10, Norway, Social Issues
Visa-free zone in northern Norway and Russia?
(Mia Bennett/Foreign Policy Blogs Arctic Blog, 7 January 2010) -- The small border between Norway and Russia all the way up in the high north has been Russia’s most stable border for the past 1,000 years. Now, that border may disappear, in a sense, as Norway and Russia consider doing away with visas for residents. Right before the annual meeting of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO), which begins today, the Prime Minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre, noted that he hopes an agreement will be forthcoming later this year. The agreement would affect people living within 30 kilometers of the border: that is, 55,000 Russians and 9,000 Norwegians. The county of Finnmark in northern Norway is suffering from a lack of labor, and it is hoped that visa-free travel could help to shore up the labor deficit by allowing Russians to work.
Posted 7 January 2010; 10:01:59 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic issues, International, January10, Northwest Russia, Norway
Arctic temperatures far above average
(NRK via Barents Observer, 4 January 2010) -- Air temperatures in the Arctic were in November and December between 5 and 9 degrees above the average, Norwegian meteorologist Vidar Eng confirms. The measurements, which have been made at Norwegian meteorologist stations in the Arctic in the last two months of 2009, showed a major increase compared with average figures from the period. Mr. Eng from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute in Tromsø believes the high temperatures could come from combined number of reasons, and first of all from the less amounts of ice in the area and the higher temperatures in the sea water. For all of 2009, the average temperature was three degrees higher than normal, NRK reports.
Posted 3 January 2010; 9:48:40 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Environment and Landscape, January10, Nordic Region, Norway
Power distribution resumes in Norway's Arctic region
(AFP, 29 December 2009) -- OSLO -- Power distribution in Norway's Arctic Lofoten archipelago resumed midday Tuesday after an outage deprived 30,000 residents of electricity for several hours, the local provider said.
Posted 29 December 2009; 12:26:27 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, December09, Disasters, etc., Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Power outage hits 25,000 in Norway's Arctic region
(AFP, 29 December 2009) -- Around 25,000 residents of the Arctic Norwegian Lofoten archipelago were deprived of electricity by a power outage Tuesday, electricity provider Lofotkraft said. Temperatures in the region at this time of year vary from minus 10 to minus seven degrees Celsius (19.4 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit) and there are only a few hours of sunlight per day. "The power failure has been located and repairs have started," Lofotkraft said in a statement. "We think that electricity distribution will resume before the end of the day," it added.
Posted 29 December 2009; 12:25:11 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, December09, Disasters, etc., Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Tromsø: One of the best places to spend Christmas
(BarentsObserver, 23 December 2009) -- The American travel magazine Travel and Leisure has selected Tromsø, Norway, as one of the world’s best towns to spend Christmas. “The snowy city island of Tromsø offers unparalleled views of the northern lights and a chance to say you’ve been to the North Pole—well, the Arctic Circle, anyway—for Christmas. Plus, there’s dogsledding, great food, and a mountaintop cable car. Here, “day” is just a couple hours of twilight blue”, the magazine writes on its web pages. Tromsø is only beaten by Taos in New Mexico, USA and San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, and ranked before famous places like Key West, Chicago and Vienna.
Posted 23 December 2009; 12:25:44 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, December09, Norway, Tourism
Oslo is older than previously thought
(Norway Post via Stone Pages ArchaeoNews, 8 December 2009) -- Archeologists say Oslo's history will have to be re-written. They have made new escavations east of the capital and largest city in Norway which show that people have lived on the Ekeberg heights for 10,000 years. The artifacts found include flint chips and other evidence of tool production, which show that people have lived here more than 2000 years longer than experts previously believed. The new find includes a settlement, which in those days was located at the waters edge, but now is found high up in the hillside. The land has risen after the ice cap which covered much of the area melted. Around 8-12 have lived in the newly discovered settlement, says archeologist Kristine Reiersen at the Central Office of Historic Monuments.
Posted 11 December 2009; 11:20:37 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, December09, Norway
50,000 seed samples sent to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault
(Nordic Council News, 11 December 2009) -- Sunday, December 13, a large shipment of seed samples reaches the airport of Longyearbyen, Svalbard. More than 50,000 seed samples have finally arrived at their destination—the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The shipment contains seeds from crops adapted to dry climates. Among them is sorghum, a high energy crop, known for its wide adaptability and resistance to drought. This "camel among crops" could be a key to agricultural development in areas affected by aridity and saline soils. Among the depositors are two major agricultural research centers, both working with adaptation of plants to dryer areas: ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas) and ICRISAT (International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics).
Posted 11 December 2009; 4:13:50 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conservation and Wildlife, December09, Nordic Region, Norway
Mystery of giant light spiral in Arctic solved
Getty
The unusual light phenomenon above the Norwegian city of Skjeroy worried residents and baffled astronomers
(Tom Peck/The Independent, 11 December 2009) -- When the people of Tromso in Norway's northern reaches awoke to the sight of a giant blue and white spiral of light hanging in the still dark sky above them, they were understandably shocked. It didn't look like the northern lights. Was it a meteor? A UFO? Calls flooded in to radio stations and air-traffic control towers. Astronomers were baffled. Extra-terrestrial enthusiasts got on their blogs. "It looked like a rocket that spun around and around and then went diagonally across the heavens," said Totto Eriksen, who saw the display while driving his daughter to school. And when an explanation finally came, he wasn't far wrong. It turned out to be a failed Russian nuclear-capable missile test launch. The new Bulava missile was fired from the submarine Dmitry Danskoi, the Russian defence ministry confirmed. The White Sea, close to Norway's Arctic region, is Russia's standard missile-testing site. This one failed at the third stage. Eyewitnesses described a blue light that seemed to soar up from behind a mountain in the north of the country. Others said it in stopped mid-air, then began to move in circles. Within seconds a giant spiral had covered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out from its centre, lasting for 10 to 12 minutes before disappearing. The missile is a key part of Russia's plan to rebuild its ageing weapons arsenal. But it has been beset by problems which have caused increasing embarrassment. Yesterday was the seventh time in at least 12 test launches that the missile has failed.
Posted 11 December 2009; 1:11:52 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, December09, Environment and Landscape, Nordic Region, Norway, Research
Global warming hits reindeer of Norway hard
(RedOrbit, 13 November 2009) -- The penalty of the global climate change has hit Norway’s reindeer populace as warming temperatures harm food stocks and industry expansion gobbles up grazing land for the creatures. "Over the past three years, I've had to give some hay to my 800 reindeer during the coldest months. It's more expensive and it gives me more work," Jan Egil Trasti, a Norwegian reindeer herder, told AFP. This occurs because the lichen the animals feed on is becoming scarce as winter temperatures warm up. Grazing land is also vanishing as construction, pipelines, and roads cover pastures. Trasti's nomadic relatives have herded these creatures for centuries. "I have it in my blood. I hope one of my sons will take over," Trasti said. This month the snow has not yet covered the flowers in the North. Temperatures in this area are usually meek. In the past, when the snows have fallen, it drifts upon dry ground, but now it will land on lichen bloated with water. In September, an investigation in the journal Science detailed the remarkable effects on animals in the Arctic due to the gradual warming that has occurred in the past 150 years. Jonathan Colman, an authority on "reindeer ecology" at the University of Oslo, stated that occasionally "there's wet ice in the lichen. It gets into their stomachs and they can't digest the food."
Posted 13 November 2009; 2:48:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Conservation and Wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Nordic Region, Norway, November09
(Siku Circumpolar News, 19 October 2009) -- Norway plans to spend 45.6 million EUR on new border stations on the border to Russia and modernize of the border guard service’s headquarters outside Kirkenes, reports the Barents Observer. Sør-Varanger Garrison (GSV), headquarters and training school for the border guard service, will go through major changes over the next three years, the Sør-Varanger Avis reports. Parts of the garrison were built in the 1950’s. Next year will see the start of a new 7.8 million EUR barracks for 200 persons, a new kitchen and a new mess hall. The Sør-Varanger Garrison including the borders stations has about 600 soldiers and officers. Today there are six stations along the 196 kilometers long border, but as of 2013 there will only be two large stations. "The six existing stations were built in the 1950’s and 1960’s. They are out of date, too small and not adapted to our needs now," Major Harald Enebakk at GSV told Sør-Varanger Avis. "The way we operate along the border today, we only need to larger stations in addition to the existing surveillance towers and patrol cabins." Norway is the only country in the Schengen area that uses military soldiers in the border guard service, the Barents Observer notes.
Posted 19 October 2009; 2:42:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, International, Norway, October09, Russia
Norway to spend more in the north
(BarentsObserver, 13 October 2009) -- In the Government’s budget proposal for 2010, a record increase in funding of about NOK 530 million (Euro 64 million) has been proposed for a range of measures in the High North. The budget proposal includes a significantly increase in the funding for a number of areas, particularly value creation, knowledge-building and the environment. It includes an increase of NOK 112 million for emergency tugboat services in the north, NOK 50 million for onshore value creation, NOK 19 million for marine bioprospecting, NOK 17 million for the establishment of a centre for climate and environmental research in Tromsø and NOK 126 million for space-related activities. The Government proposes to allocate NOK 55 million to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Barents 2020 programme for knowledge-building in the north. This is an increase of NOK 20 million compared with 2009, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs writes in a press-release. "This is a project with a time horizon of generations. Since 2006 we have increased funding for our efforts in the High North by more than NOK 1.5 billion, and with these allocations we have made substantial progress," Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre commented. The Foreign Minister added: "We are now seeing that a number of countries are directing their attention towards the north, not least because of the opportunities and challenges related to energy, maritime transport and climate change. Norway will continue to play a leading role in the High North in cooperation with our neighbours and allies in the north." The 2010 budget proposal aims to further strengthen these efforts. "Under the Barents 2020 programme, the Government is creating arenas for cooperation between Norwegian and foreign centres of expertise with a view to increasing our knowledge about the High North," Mr Støre continued.
Posted 13 October 2009; 4:57:47 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Nordic Region, Norway, October09
Canada, Norway, Russia to provide Arctic sea weather warnings
(Agence France-Presse via SpaceDaily, 23 September 2009) -- Canada, Norway and Russia will soon provide navigation and meteorological warnings for ships crossing the Arctic sea, a new maritime route which has opened up due to global warming, a WMO expert said Wednesday. A revised Manual on Maritime Safety Information which is to come into force in 2011 now includes the Arctic as a new zone, divided into five areas where weather warnings would have to be provided. "One of the consequences of the melting of ice, is that we have now several passages, that just 10 years ago were open only for navigation in summertime. Now they are open almost all the year for navigation," said Edgard Cabrera, who heads the WMO's Marine Meteorology and Ocean Affairs division. "That's why it was necessary to establish five new areas," he added. Previously, no country had been assigned to provide weather and navigation information in the Arctic seas. The manual will be launched on Thursday by the World Meteorological Organization, the International Maritime Organization and the International Hydrographic Organization.
Posted 27 September 2009; 1:08:07 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, International, Norway, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Arctic drilling hinges on Norway poll
(Sky News, 14 September 2009) -- Norwegians have voted in a general election that could lead to oil drilling in the Arctic. The future for the country's lucrative oil industry has been one of the main issues in the run-up to election. The Arctic is one of the world's most pristine environments—home to some of the rarest animals, and it is hoped, untapped oil and gas reserves. The controversial issue of drilling in the region has been stalled by political deadlock in Norway for many years. Current Labour Party Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has given his backing to the project but his Coalition government is split over the issue. His opponents support it. Mr Stoltenberg said he was aware the election would be a tight race. Voters are also concerned about how Norway will spend the vast revenue accumulated from its oil and gas industry. There are currently $US80,000 per citizen saved from the sales of oil and gas.
Posted 14 September 2009; 9:27:16 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources
UN chief visits 'doomsday' seed vault in Arctic
(AFP, 2 September 2009) -- LONGYEARBYEN, Norway - UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited Wednesday a vault carved into the Arctic permafrost, filled with samples of the world's most important seeds in case food crops are wiped out by a catastrophe. "The world faces many daunting challenges today, one of the greatest of which is how to feed a growing population in the context of climate change," a bundled-up Ban told reporters after he toured the site in the Svalbard archipelago some 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) from the North Pole. "The seeds stored here in Svalbard will help us do just that. Sustainable food production may not begin in this cold Arctic environment, but it does begin by conserving crop diversity," he said. Aimed at safeguarding biodiversity in the face of climate change, wars and other natural and man-made disasters, the seed bank has the capacity to hold up to 4.5 million batches of seeds, or twice the number of crop varieties believed to exist in the world today. The vault was inaugurated in February 2008, and so far some 25 international and national institutes from 22 countries have deposited some 400,000 batches, according to the Norwegian government.
Posted 3 September 2009; 10:29:57 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, International, Norway
Ban on ice, or maybe not: The Arctic is melting
(ENS, 1 September 2009) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon traveled above the Arctic Circle today to experience for himself the impact of climate change on the fragile region. "I will try to deliver a clear strong message from my visit to the North Pole," Ban told reporters yesterday in Oslo. Secretary-General Ban wants to deliver that message to two important climate meetings before year's end. First, the meeting of government leaders that he will convene at UN Headquarters in New York on September 22, a time when heads of state and government will be there for the opening of the General Assembly. And, the make-it or break-it meeting December 7-18 in Copenhagen where a global agreement on limiting greenhouse gas emissions will be finalized to take effect after the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period expires at the end of 2012. Ban clearly feels the pressure of time. He repeats that only 15 days of negotiations remain before the start of December's climate change conference "Now is the time for decision-making," the Secretary-General stressed once again as he has many times this summer to a wide variety of audiences. "We must seal a deal in Copenhagen for a global, equitable and comprehensive deal for the future of humanity and the future of Planet Earth."
Posted 2 September 2009; 5:07:20 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, International, Nordic Region, Norway
UN chief to visit Norway’s Arctic region
(New Europe, Issue 849, 30 August 2009) -- United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to be in Norway’s Svalbard this week for a first-hand look at the damage caused by global warming to the Arctic Ocean, a UN spokeswoman said on August 24. Ban’s visit to Norway and the expected talks with government leaders has been overshadowed by sharp criticism from Norway’s UN Ambassador Mona Juul that the UN chief has been ineffective in carrying out his responsibilities. Oslo has played down Juul’s criticism, outlined in a letter she sent to her government and published in Oslo’s daily Aftenposten last week. The UN has refused to enter the debate, referring to it as an internal matter for Norwegians. “At the time when the need for the United Nations and for multinational solutions to global crises is greater than ever, Ban and the UN are conspicuous in their absence,” Aftenposten quoted the letter as saying. The letter said Ban was a “passive observer” in Myanmar’s imprisonment of political prisoners and he was “helpless” in stopping the ethnic war in Sri Lanka. Ban will meet with Norway’s prime minister and foreign minister August 31 and will travel to the Arctic region the following day.
Posted 31 August 2009; 12:35:45 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, Nordic Region, Norway
(BarentsObserver, 31 August 2009) -- The Norwegian government has allocated money for the establishment of nautical studies in Vardø, home of the Vessel Traffic Centre for North Norway. The Norwegian Coastal Administration’s Vessel Traffic Centre (VTS) is responsible for monitoring and guiding of shipping traffic along the coast of Northern Norway. The vessel traffic centre plays a key role in Norway’s maritime safety cooperation with Russia. The Vardø VTS has since its opening in 2007 mainly been operated by commuters from other parts of Norway, and it has been difficult to recruit people with the right education among the 2600 local inhabitants. To improve the situation, Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Helga Pedersen has allocated 104.000 EUR for the establishment of a two year program in nautical studies in Vardø, Kystverket reports. The Vardø VTS is one of several measures promoted by the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs to improve maritime safety in northern areas and to meet the challenges that follow from the increase in oil-related traffic in the north. Vardø VTS is also intended to play a key role in expanded cooperation with Russia in the areas of maritime safety and contingency planning for combating oil spills. Norway and Russia have concluded an agreement to establish a joint Norwegian-Russian vessel traffic management information system, Barents VTMIS. As BarentsObserver reported, more than 15 million tons of oil will be shipped through the Barents Sea in 2009. In 2015 oil shipments in the area could amount to more than 100 million tons.
Posted 31 August 2009; 12:08:54 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Education and Civil Society, Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Sami Parliament against new mining projects in Finnmark
(The Barents Observer via IceNews, 10 August 2009) -- The Sami parliament (Samediggi) governing the indigenous Sami people in Norway, decided not to approve the new mining law which Norwegian legislators passed earlier this year, according to the Sami news source, The Barents Observer. Egil Olli, President of the Sami parliament, stated that the assembly strongly opposes any application for mineral exploration in the Finnmark region. The Sami Parliament demands that any resources and mineral exploration should benefit mainly the local Sami communities and population, which brings up the controversial ongoing debates regarding indigenous land rights in the region. Egil Olli continues to state that any mining projects will be rejected by the Sami Parliament in the Finnmark area.
Posted 27 August 2009; 4:28:48 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, Indigenous Issues, Nordic Region, Norway, Resource Issues
Hunt is on for polar explorer Amundsen's seaplane
(Pierre-Henry Deshayes/AFP, 25 August 2009) -- OSLO - Norway's navy set sail this week for the Barents Sea to track down the missing plane used by legendary polar explorer Roald Amundsen who disappeared 81 years ago and hopefully resolve one of the Arctic's enigmas. Over some 10 days, two vessels will scour 36 square nautical miles (120 square kilometres) of seabed close to the island of Bjoernoeya in a bid to locate the remains of Amundsen's seaplane. "We are about to embark on a bold initiative which provides the only opportunity to solve one of Norway's most enduring mysteries; what happened to Roald Amundsen and his men?," expedition leader Rob McCallum of New Zealand wrote on his blog on Monday. ... On June 18, 1928 around 4:00 pm, Amundsen, Norwegian pilot Leif Dietrichson and four French nationals took off from the northern Norwegian town of Tromsø. Between 6:45 and 6:55 pm, the crew sent a radio message, then nothing more: the seaplane and its crew disappeared, probably off of Bjørnøya [Bear Island], the southernmost of the cluster of islands that make up the Svalbard archipelago. The circumstances of their disappearance have never been established and their bodies have never been found. Nobile and most of his crew survived. The Norwegian navy vessel KNM Tyr, equipped with two underwater robots, will now search the seabed northwest of Bjørnøya with a fine-toothed comb, supported by a ship from the Norwegian coastguard, the KNM Harstad, to find the seaplane's engines. "We are concentrating on the engine because as the plane was made of wood, we think it would have rotted away," Vegard Hatten, a Norwegian navy spokesman, told AFP. "If it really is in the presumed area, we will find it with our sophisticated equipment," he added.
Posted 27 August 2009; 3:35:09 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, Norway, Research / Reports
UN's Ban to see climate change effects on North Pole trip
(AFP, 25 August 2009) -- UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is to visit a Norwegian island deep inside the Arctic Circle, near the North Pole, to see firsthand the effects of climate change, his spokeswoman said. Ban is scheduled to arrive in Oslo on August 31 for an official visit where he will be received by Norway's King Harald V, and hold meetings with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere. He will also place a wreath on the tomb of Trygve Lie, the first secretary general of the United Nations. The following day, on September 1, Ban will head to Longyearbyen, a town on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. The UN chief will spend two days visiting polar stations and research institutes on the island, which is part of the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic ocean. Ban hopes "to see firsthand the impact of climate change in the Arctic," his spokeswoman Michele Montas said Monday. He will receive "the latest update on issues related to the thinning ice and make his way to the polar ice rim," he said. After his visit, Ban is scheduled to head to Geneva to participate on September 3 in the third World Climate Conference, organized by the UN's World Meteorological Organization.
Posted 26 August 2009; 4:06:25 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, International, Norway
Last strontium battery to be removed
(BarentsObserver, 25 August 2009) -- Next Monday will mark the removal of the last radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) from a lighthouse on the Island of Vaigach. State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Elisabeth Walaas, will go to Vaigach to overlook the removal. Since 1998 Norway has, in consultations with Russian authorities, financed the removal of RTGs and replaced them with environmentally friendly solar cell technology. The Norwegian Government has spent more than $20 million kroner on the RTG removals with the aim to avoid radioactive contamination of the marine and terrestrial environments. Also, it is important to remove the strong radioactive sources from the remote—and unguarded, areas to prevent unwanted access to sources of radioactivity. According to information from the County Governor of Finnmark in Norway, there have been four attempted thefts from lighthouses powered by strontium batteries in the northern areas. The County Governor of Finnmark is the project manager on the Norwegian side, while the removals are coordinated by Rosatom on the Russian side. After removal the radioactive sources from the RTGs are sent to the Mayak plant in the South Urals for long-term storage. The first lighthouses with RTGs to be removed were those near the border to Norway west of the Fishermen’s Peninsula on the Barents Sea coast. Originally there were 180 RTGs in the Barents Region. Half of them were removed before 2006.
Posted 26 August 2009; 12:45:04 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, Environment and Landscape, International, Northwest / Russia, Norway, Russia
Kirkenes business participants to study possibilities in Teriberka
(BarentsObserver, 20 August 2009) -- Thirty representatives from the business sector in the Norwegian border town Kirkenes leave for a study tour to the Russian settlement Teriberka, future main base for the Shtokman project. The aim of the trip is to learn more about the possibilities for participation in the development of the village. The participants also hope to tie contacts with possible Russian partners, newspaper Sør-Varanger Avis reports. "We have to be ready the day things start to happen in Teriberka," says communication manager of the Finnmark County authorities Trond Magne Henriksen. "We will not be sitting on the sideline here." As BarentsObserver has reported, Kirkenes sees major business opportunities from the Shtokman project. The town has port facilities and service industries which can supplement the bases on the Russian side of the border. Also Teriberka awaits a major change from a sleepy fishing village to the hub of the world’s biggest offshore gas field. A large part of the visiting group comes from the construction and building sector in Kirkenes, who hopes to get construction contracts when the big work begins. The study tour is organized and financed by Finnmark County authorities and Innovation Norway.
Posted 20 August 2009; 1:28:21 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, International, Norway, Russia
Clear majority of Norwegians against oil drilling in country’s northwest, television report says
(Ola Innset/Bellona, Charles Digges, trans., 18 August 2009) -- A nationwide survey undertaken by NRK Norwegian Television showed that a clear majority of Norwegians are against oil drilling near the north western coastal areas of Lofoten and Vesterålen, which are rich in fisheries and exceptional natural beauty. “David can slay Goliath,” said Bellona President Frederic Hauge. “We have a powerful enemy in the oil industry and they use considerable resources to sway public opinion with them.” In this Parliamentary election year for Norway, allowing or denying oil companies access to the oil oil reserves off the coasts of Lofoten and Vesterålen may trigger some of the most heated debates leading up to the autumn elections. Bellona has long advocated closing off the Lofoten and Vesterålen basins for the oil industry as “long-term oil-free areas.” Yet Norway’s oil reserves are also a source of the lion’s share of the country’s wealth, ensuring that the Scandinavian country has the highest standard of living of any country on earth. The divisions between those who are for drilling and against therefore may not, come election day, be so stark.
Posted 19 August 2009; 10:38:11 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Resource Issues
Record breaking Svalbard school intake
(IceNews, 18 August 2009) -- The Svalbard archipelago off northern Norway is far above the Arctic Circle and famous for its new international seed vault and for Longyearbyen, the northernmost town in the world with over 1,000 inhabitants. The islanders make most of their money from mining and come form all over the world due to the Spitsbergen Treaty which was signed shortly after the First World War. Under the treaty, Svalbard was ceded to Norway after centuries of claims and counter claims, including some bloodshed. The treaty stipulated though, that people of all signing nations have equal rights to settle and work in Svalbard—there are currently over 40 signatory nations. While people are forbidden to die in Svalbard due to the permafrost preserving corpses in their graves indefinitely, people are permitted to grow up there. In fact school has just reconvened with 241 students—28 more than this time last year, including 30 in the youngest year group. There are 1,821 residents in Longyearbyen, a town which holds a number of interesting records: “Longyearbyen is the world’s most northern easily accessible settlement, with Svalbard Airport just outside town offering regular flights to and from Tromsø and Oslo, Norway. The airport served 120,000 passengers in 2007. It is also the northernmost town over 1000 inhabitants; it houses a large number of northernmost places and objects of interest: the northernmost church, university campus, Rotary club, bank, automated teller machine, hospital, kindergarten, public library, night club, pub, school, supermarket, tourist office, permanent airport with scheduled flights, bus station, commercial sea port, taxi station, art gallery, cinema, climbing wall, squash court, swimming hall, and indoor target range,” according to Wikipedia.
Posted 18 August 2009; 11:00:24 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Education and Civil Society, Nordic Region, Norway, Social Issues, Women, Children and Families, Youth
Norwegian/Russian cooperation in the Barents Sea
(Rolleiv Solholm/NRK via The Norway Post, 18 August 2009) -- Norway and Russia will this month begin a joint mapping of undiscovered natural resources in the Barents Sea and around the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, DN Energi reports. The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), the University of Oslo (UiO) and the Russian Geological Institute (GIN RAS) will participate in the charting mission. In this connection, the UiO has awarded a contract to the Russian research vessel Akademik Nikolay Strakhov which will carry out most of the geological survey for oil and gas as well as general research and mapping. NPD research director Sissel Eriksen says to DN Energi that DPN has cooperated with Russia for some time, and that this latest agreement is a continuation of this cooperation. She underlines that the main task now is charting the area, and not to explore for oil and gas. NPD has earlier estimated that two thirds of Norway's undiscovered resources are to be found in the northern regions.
Posted 17 August 2009; 8:26:51 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, International, Norway, Russia
(Siku Circumpolar News, 5 August 2009) -- Norway has moved the headquarters of its armed forces from Oslo to the northern town of Bardufoss, part of a general strengthening of the country’s military capacities in its Arctic region, reports the Barents Observer. The moving comes as practically all key parts of the Norway's armed forces are moved to the northern parts of the country. The head command will operate from Reitan, a defense centre outside Bodø. Norway is also strengthening its military capacities in the region, with new modern frigates and the new fleet of fighter jets. The move, which was officially completed on August 3, is part of a major reform of the armed forces, Mil.ru says. This includes developing a slimmer, but more efficient military structure, the army leaders say.
Posted 6 August 2009; 3:11:34 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway
IKEA looks to Tromsø or Narvik for a new store
(Siku Circumpolar News, 21 July 2009) -- IKEA reps have confirmed that the company it's thinking about building a a new store in northern Norway, the Barents Observer reports. The city of Tromsø says it has shown several site to IKEA. People in northern Norway have been calling on IKEA to establish a warehouse in the region. In 2004, a group of IKEA fans there started a web site to urge IKEA to come north. Since then more than 30,000 people have signed the web site's petition. "I hope IKEA has noted the interest," Kim Hauglid, the web site's promoter, says. Tromsø and Narvik are believed to be the main competitors for the new store. Both city mayors confirm that IKEA has shown interest. Tromsø's mayor Arild Hausberg said IKEA showed “great interest” in one of the site locations presented by the city. A warehouse in Tromsø or Narvik would be the northernmost one for IKEA. IKEA has one store in Haparanda on the border between Sweden and Finland, which attracts a many customers from northern Norway.
Posted 22 July 2009; 4:39:10 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Nordic Region, Norway
Sami Parliament will not approve new mining
(BarentsObserver, 22 July 2009) -- The Sami Parliament will not approve new mining projects in the northernmost Norwegian county of Finnmark, parliament speaker Egil Olli says. The Sami Parliament has strongly opposed the Norwegian national mineral law which was adopted by Norwegian legislators earlier this year. The parliament was unable to get its positions included in the law and has since threatened with a boycott of the new legislation. The Sami Parliament will not accept any mineral exploration in the region and will turn down all applications from interested companies, Olli stresse [sic] says to ABC Nyheter. "The Sami Parliament in May decided that it can not accept the mineral industry which the law is supposed to regulate," he adds. As reported previously by BarentsObserver, the Sami Parliament demands that local Sami communities get more benefits from regional industrial activities and that mining companies pay special fees for the indigenous people.
Posted 22 July 2009; 12:24:31 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Indigenous Issues, Nordic Region, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Resource Issues
(BarentsObserver, 22 July 2009) -- The energy company Troms Kraft is investing 700 million NOK in the construction of a new windmill park at Vannøya, northern Norway. Planned expansions of the park could give power to all of northern Norway, the company says. The first phase of the project will give power to 9000 households in the region. However a planned phase two and phase three could give energy to all of northern Norway, CEO of Troms Kraft Oddbjørn Schei says to newspaper Nordlys. "This is a historic day, it could not have been better," representative of the Norwegian Ministry of Oil and Petroleum Jarand Felland said at an project ceremony in early July. The first project phase includes up to 20 wind generators. They are to start power generation in 2012. As reported previously by BarentsObserver, a government decision to expand the power transmission grid in northern Norway could open a new era industrial initiatives in the region.
Posted 22 July 2009; 11:05:56 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Alternative Energy / Climate Change Responses, Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Northern aboriginal suicide rate lower in Norway: researcher
(CBC News, 15 July 2009) -- Research suggests suicide rates among the Sami, the indigenous peoples of Norway, are lower than among other northern aboriginal groups. Anne Silviken, a psychologist with the Center for Sami Health Research in Norway, found the suicide rate among the Sami is about 19 per 100,000. By comparison, Silviken said Greenland Inuit have a rate of about 100 per 100,000. "The socio-economic status among Sami, they're not big differences between the Sami and the [general] population, so that could be one reason for the low suicide rates," Silviken said Tuesday at the International Congress on Circumpolar Health, being held in Yellowknife. "The Sami has been in an ongoing cultural revitalization process during the [past] three and four decades, so they have seen more cultural equality." Silviken said such factors mean the Sami are not as disadvantaged as some other indigenous groups around the circumpolar world. At the same time, she said, the Sami share a similar history, such as having experienced residential schools. Silviken said she hopes the health congress will help northern peoples learn from each other, as well as empower northern communities to help deal with suicide and other social problems.
Posted 15 July 2009; 9:57:41 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Health and wellness, Indigenous Issues, Nordic Region, Norway, Research / Reports
Global warming to open up north-east Arctic tanker route
(UTV, 14 July 2009) -- A new "north-east passage" for shipping around Russia's Arctic coast and across the North Pole will be opened within a decade as global warming causes the ice cap to melt, Norway's foreign minister has predicted. Jonas Gahr Store, speaking at a recent public lecture in Edinburgh, said the route through previously inaccessible Russian waters, could cut tanker journey times between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Yokohama in Japan by 40%, and provide a safer and "pirate-free" route for trans-global shipping. "The rise in temperatures across the Arctic is twice the world average. Soon there will be no summer ice—that will open up new routes and new strategic issues for the world," he said. The forecast follows previous predictions that the more famous north-west passage will be opened by climate change. The melting ice also has implications for the global energy market. The Arctic is thought to hold 20% of world resources of fossil fuels—principally sub-sea gas in the massive Shtokman field. The Russian government plans to start extracting gas from the Barents Sea by 2011 with French partners Total and the Norwegian state-owned Statoil. The Arctic operating environment however is extremely hostile. Some 250 miles offshore, Shtokman cannot be reached by helicopter from continental bases. Explorers would also need to contend with temperatures of -50C (-58F) and ice flows the size of Jamaica. With 50 Norwegian exploration and supply companies already registered in Murmansk, Mr Gahr Store believes Russia accepts it cannot develop the area alone.
Posted 15 July 2009; 9:55:25 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, International, Norway, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
(Christina Henriksen/Barents Indigenous People, 13 July 2009) -- Buffy Sainte-Marie is performing at Riddu Riddu this very Friday, July 17 2009. Riddu Riddu is an international indigenous peoples' festival arranged annually by the local Saami in Gáivuotna/Kåfjord, who has dreamed about having Buffy Sainte-Marie on stage since the first festival in 1991. The world-known Saami artist Mari Boine is performing on Saturday, and among the other artists at this year's festival are Adjágas (Sapmi), Namgar (Buryatia), Alit Boazu (Sápmi), Yerboli (China) and The BlackSheeps (Sápmi). The Nisga'a people visits Riddu Riddu this year, and a traditional Nisga'a long-house is built for the occasion. It will be an addition to the collection of indigenous peoples' housing, which already includes a Nenets choom and a Siberian yurta, as well as others. Saturday is dedicated to the Nisga'a people, as they are this year's people of the North. Indigenous youth gather for workshops in East Saami handicraft, Nisga'a singing and dancing, as well as South Saami yoik, and the results can be seen on the main stage on Saturday evening. Anders Sunna from Pajala is this year's young artist, and his exhibition is located to the Ája Gallery. Check out the program and further information at www.riddu.no
Posted 14 July 2009; 1:35:35 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arts and Artists, Circumpolar News, Communities, Conferences, meetings, and gatherings, Indigenous Issues, Nordic Region, Norway
A plan to change the skyline of Kirkenes
(Siku Circumpolar News, 5 June 2009) -- Norway's Barents Secretariat wants to build the tallest wooden building ever constructed in the region right in the heart of downtown Kirkenes. In a news release, the Norwegian Barents Secretariat said the time was ripe to build for a physical symbol of the positive developments in Norway's arctic region. "The new Barents House must be of such significance that people would want to go there from afar to experience the house. It must be an attraction and a landmark which is beyond any other similar building. As important is the ambition of making the building a centre for knowledge development, especially about the High North and Norwegian-Russian relations, and a place for the gathering and assembly of international High North interests," said Secretary General Rune Rafaelsen at the Norwegian Barents Secretariat. The Oslo-based architectural firm Reiulf Ramstad Architects has designed the plans for the building, which would have 16 to 17 floors. "The idea is to construct a building which will be CO2-neutral, where the concept of the cycles of nature will be preserved. The innovative solutions on modern wooden constructions will stand as a token of the level of competence in the region," said architect Reiulf Ramstad The building woul go up in downtown Kirkenes, dramatically changing the city's skyline. "The new Barents House will function as a lighthouse for the development of the Barents Region and the regional border cooperation in the North," Rafaelsen said. The building's design includes a library, a theatre and a space for artists, researchers, students and other institutions, says the Barents Observer. The Norwegian Barents Secretariat, the International Barents Secretariat and the Barents Institute would also have their offices in the building.
Posted 7 June 2009; 5:23:50 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
(Svalbard Science Forum, 5 June 2009) -- The Norwegian Polar Institute has developed a cruise handbook for Svalbard with information about natural environment, history and cultural heritage. Now it is also available in English. The handbook provides visitors to Svalbard with quality-assured information about the natural environment, history and cultural heritage sites along the coasts of the archipelago. The handbook comprises an introductory chapter that offers an overview of the the natural environment, history, cultural heritage sites and environmental legislation of Svalbard, followed by chapters covering each of the main areas of Svalbard visited by cruise ship tourists. For the areas along the western and northern coasts of Spitsbergen, some of the most visited landing sites are described in detail, with practical advice pertaining to what visitors may experience there as well as aspects of the sites that need special consideration during visits. Go to cruise handbook: http://cruise-handbook.npolar.no/en/index.html
Posted 6 June 2009; 11:37:39 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Books, Blogs and Publications, Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway, Research / Reports, Tourism / Perspectives
StatoilHydro, Gazprom extend Arctic cooperation
(Reuters, 5 June 2009) -- OSLO - Norwegian oil and gas group StatoilHydro and Russia's Gazprom agreed on Friday to extended cooperation in exploring and producing petroleum resources in northern regions, StatoilHydro said. The agreement is valid for three years and replaces a similar 2005 Arctic cooperation deal between Gazprom, Statoil and Norsk Hydro (Oslo: NHY.OL - news) before Statoil bought Norsk Hydro's oil and gas assets to form StatoilHydro in 2007. StatoilHydro is partnered with Gazprom and France's Total to develop the giant Shtokman gas field in Russia's part of the Barents Sea in the Arctic. 'The Memorandum stipulates that the parties will cooperate in northern regions of Russia and Norway to discover and develop hydrocarbon fields, as well as to design technologies for exploration, production and transportation of corresponding resources,' StatoilHydro said in a statement. Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller, who signed the deal with StatoilHydro's CEO Helge Lund in St Petersburg, said Shtokman would be 'the starting point' for developing Arctic oil and gas resources. Gazprom has said it expects to take an investment decision on Shtokman with Total and StatoilHydro in the first quarter of 2010, and aims to begin exporting gas by pipeline from the field in 2013 and as liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2014. Lund said the cooperation deal underscored the long-term continuity of the relationship between StatoilHydro and Gazprom.
Posted 5 June 2009; 8:46:23 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Resource Issues, Russia
Norwegian pressure against Sami governance
(BarentsObserver, 29 May 2009) -- The Progress Party, the second biggest political party in Norway, wants to abolish the Sami Parliament, pull Norway out of the ILO Convention 169 and reduce Sami land rights. No ethnic group should have exclusive land or government preferences, the party argues. In its annual assembly this week, the party adopted a controversial policy programme on Sami issues, which calls for the deprival of all exclusive land and governance rights of the indigenous Sami people. Should the Progress Party win the upcoming parliament elections and get government power, ethnic tensions in northern Norway could get serious, observers fear. The Progress Party in its programme maintains that the Sami Parliament in Norway should be abolished in its current form and that Norway should pull out of the ILO Convention 169, an agreement which grants exclusive rights to indigenous peoples. The programme also indicates that the Finnmark Authority, the Sami-dominated body in control of land management in the northernmost county of Finnmark, should be abolished. The anti-Sami policy of the right-wing party comes as tensions between Sami and non-Sami interests in northern Norway is on the increase. As BarentsObserver reported, new and stricter land claims from Sami communities stir increasing irritation among other groups in the region.
Posted 29 May 2009; 4:33:16 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Indigenous Issues, Nordic Region, Norway
New website: BarentsIndigenous.org
(Jonas Sjøkvist Karlsbakk/Norwegian Barents Secretariat, 20 May 2009) -- The BarentsIndigenous.org website will provide news and further information about the indigenous peoples of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region. Activities and projects involving indigenous peoples of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region are key items of the website, as well as promotion of the activities of the Working Group of Indigenous Peoples of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region. A Russian version will hopefully be ready soon, as the website has a particular eye on the Russian side. Information across the state borders is crucial for extended cooperation, and the Norwegian Barents Secretariat has a pronounced focus on indigenous peoples and aims for increased activity and border-crossing cooperation between the Nenets, Saami and Veps of the region. The website is administrated by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, in cooperation with the Barents Indigenous Peoples' Office (BIPO) in Lovozero, Russian Federation.
Posted 29 May 2009; 3:09:10 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Communications and media, Indigenous Issues, Internet Resources, Nordic Region, Northwest / Russia, Norway, Russia
More people in northern Norway
(NRK via BarentsObserver, 22 May 2009) -- The population in northern Norway is on the increase. In the first three months of the year, the regional population increased with more than 500 people, which is the best result in years. In the first quarter of 2009, the population in the northermost county of Finnmark increased with 33 people. In the Troms County, the population increased with 256 and in Nordland with 271. A total of 72,525 people now live in Finnmark, while 155,809 live in Troms and 235,651 in Nordland. In Troms and Nordland, the populations increased as a consequence of both in-migration and higher birthrates. In Finnmark, there was a net out-migration, while the birth rate increased.
Posted 24 May 2009; 12:58:08 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway, Research / Reports, Social Issues
Stoltenberg, Medvedev, and Putin discuss cooperation in Arctic
(Mia Bennett/The Arctic, World Blog Network, 23 May 2009) -- On Tuesday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg visited Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at his residence outside Moscow. The two leaders discussed cooperation in the Arctic, mainly regarding the issue of gas. Medvedev said, “The development of the region as a whole depends on how we form a coordinated position on exploring the gas fields on the Arctic shelf. I think this is one of the most important areas of our cooperation.” The Russian president was chair of Gazprom’s board of directors until just a little over a year ago. Stoltenberg also visited Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Together, they discussed Russia’s presence in Svalbard and the gas field at Shtokman, which Putin noted was a “big bilateral project between our two countries.” Another issue discussed—but far from resolved—between Russia and Norway was the status of the “grey zone” in the Barents Sea, where both countries’ territorial claims overlap over a resource-rich area of 175,000 square kilometers. The United Nations ruled earlier this month that since both countries have legitimate claims to the area, the dispute would have to be resolved bilaterally. Norway wants the territory to be divided based on a dividing line drawn through the middle of the area, while Russia wants the division to be based on the “principal of justice,” which would entail drawing borders in respect to the western coasts of Soviet Arctic territories. Aside from these sticky disputes, Norwegian-Russia relations are generally friendly. Last year, trade between the two countries increased 45%. Stoltenberg and Norwegian Defense Minister Jonas Gahr Støre have often commented that they are not worried by Russian military development in the Arctic, saying that it is only logical. While there have been a few minor spats over Russian jet exercises outside of Norwegian airspace, tensions have never reached the level of the Canadian-Russian relationship, for example.
Posted 23 May 2009; 5:24:52 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, International, Nordic Region, Norway, Russia
Medvedev calls on Norway for coordination in Arctic development
(Itar-Tass, 19 May 2009) -- BARVIKHA - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev calls on Norway for a coordinated stand on Arctic development. At the meeting in his out-of-town residence with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Soltenberg, he noted that Russia and Norway “are northern, Arctic countries, and the development of the region as a whole depends on their taking a close, coordinated stand on matters of Arctic development. ... I believe this is one of the most important trends of cooperation,” the Russian president said. He noted that on the whole relations between Russia and Norway had been developing “quite well” of late. “There has been a substantive growth of trade turnover recently,” Medvedev added. “This year does not promise to be very easy, but our colleagues are working, and a regular session of the intergovernmental commission was held recently. I do hope that this will allow us to reach new economic milestones, despite the current economic difficulties,” the Russian president said. He noted that economic matters would be discussed during the talks. “I hope that your visit will be useful and productive; I mean a number of important documents will be signed during the visit, new results will be achieved that will strengthen friendly interaction between our countries,” Medvedev said. According to the information of the Russian side, trade turnover between Russia and Norway decreased by 36.4 percent in January-February 2009 as compared with the same period in 2008, making up 237 million dollars. Russia’s export dropped by 54 percent, making up 96 million dollars, while import decreased by 13 percent, amounting to 141 million dollars. Some 120 enterprises with the participation of Norwegian capital are registered in Russia, its volume being nearly 1.5 billion dollars. Norwegian capital is developed mainly in Russia’s north-western regions, particularly in the Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and Leningrad regions, with industry, wholesale trade, services, telecommunications and the mass media being the priority areas.
Posted 19 May 2009; 11:58:19 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, International, Nordic Region, Northwest / Russia, Norway, Russia
Contractor found for shipwreck removal
(Nordlys via BarentsObserver, 18 May 2009) -- The [Norwegian] Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs will cover all expenses for removal of the wreck of the cruiser, which ended its days in the rocks outside Sørvær on the coast of Finnmark in December 1994, news paper Nordlys writes. The cruiser was being tugged southwards for scrapping when it tore away during a storm. The Norwegian company AF Gruppen Norge AS is chosen as contractor for the project, and the work will probably start this summer. The wreck has been to a lot of nuisance to the local population, and environmentalists have raised questions about environmental problems related to the wreck.
Posted 18 May 2009; 10:14:39 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Natural disasters and other problems, Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Energy grid revolution for northern Norway
(BarentsObserver, 15 May 2009) -- Norwegian state-owned energy grid company Statnett intends to make northern Norway its top priority region the next 15 years. New energy transmission lines will be constructed, which could open a new era of industrial opportunities in the region. Statnett, Norway’s main national grid owner and operator, today presented plans, which will make northern Norway the company’s main investment region the next 15 years. Company information director Tor Inge Akselsen confirms to NRK that wind park plans and new oil and gas projects are main reasons for the planned investments. The news about the investments come just a week after the Norwegian government approved the development plans for the Goliat oil field in the Barents Sea. As BarentsObserver reported, that field is to be developed with power from the mainland. The investments in the region have a price tag of about 8 billion NOK, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reports. Included in the plans is a new 420 KW transmission line from Balsfjord to Hammerfest and a 132 KW line from the Norwegian-Russian Pasvik border river to Varangerbotn Insufficient power transmission capacity has been the roadblock to a number of new industrial project in northern Norway, among them several wind power project along the Barents Sea. The Norwegian government represented by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy is the owner and ministry responsible for Statnett.
Posted 18 May 2009; 10:03:02 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Former coal mine aids Arctic climate research
(AFP, 8 May 2009) -- NY-ÅLESUND, Norway (AFP) — Out of place in the snowy, polar landscape, the train that once hauled coal out of the mountain serves as a reminder to scientists at the Ny Ålesund Arctic research station of the origin of the planet's woes. Before becoming an international research station where scientists study the effects of global warming, this cluster of coloured buildings in the northwest corner of Norway's Svalbard archipelago was once a mining site for fossil fuels now blamed for climate change. A firedamp explosion in the coal mine killed 21 men in 1962. The disaster ended the mining era in Ny-Ålesund, which is closer to the North Pole just 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) away than to Oslo, where the tragedy brought down the government. Scientists in white lab coats have since replaced the black-faced miners, and the remote town—the northernmost in the world—has a "broader broadband than London," boasts Kings Bay, the company that runs the site. There is however no mobile network, and visitors are asked to turn off their cell phones to avoid disturbances to the research station's finely-calibrated measuring instruments.
Posted 12 May 2009; 10:25:38 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Norway, Research / Reports
Co-operation called by Norway for Arctic resources
(A. Rienstra/IceNews, 6 May 2009) -- Norway’s Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store opened last week’s international conference on managing the Arctic with a plea to co-operate peacefully as the five nations that border the Arctic begin to vie for the lucrative resources that lie under the seabed. Using the catchphrase “High North, low tension”, Store was optimistic at the summit in the northern Norwegian town of Tromso. The main focus of this year’s Arctic summit was the rapid melting of the Arctic’s ice. The AFP reports that the Arctic region holds up to 30 percent of the planet’s undiscovered natural gas reserves and perhaps 13 percent of undiscovered oil reserves. These resources will finally become accessible as the Arctic ice cap melts away. The race to claim these potential riches has been accompanied by a similar increase in military activity in the region. NATO plans to play a bigger role in the region, and Russia has been increasingly vocal about its rights to deploy military units in the Arctic. Store told reporters: “We will as responsible governments and coastal states be able to manage the challenges and opportunities of this region without gliding into conflict and negative competition. We have every opportunity to prove wrong those who say that this is bound to be a regional conflict of competing interests. It need not be that way; we can do that very differently.”
Posted 6 May 2009; 10:14:24 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, International, Nordic Region, Norway
Russian Post to open office on Svalbard
(Barents Observer, 28 April 2009) -- Russia plans to open a post office on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard in the near future. Telecommunication networks, including satellite and mobile systems will be expanded and developed further. In course of the next two months, Russia and Norway will sign an agreement on opening of a branch of Russian Post on Svalbard. The decision about this was made by a Russian-Norwegian working group on information technologies and innovation on a meeting in Oslo this week. Svalbard is under Norwegian jurisdiction, but has a particular status where Russia has the right to conduct business on the archipelago. The working group also discussed the development of telecommunications on Svalbard, like expansion of the existing GSM-900 mobile telephone network. Russian authorities plan to open a multiservice telecommunications network in the Russian settlement of Barentsburg that can provide inhabitants and companies with multimedia and interactive internet services. For this the Russian satellite “Ekspress-AM1” will be used, web site Comnews.ru writes.
Posted 28 April 2009; 11:37:47 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, International, Norway, Russia
Gov. Gen. visits Norway as it moves even closer to Canada
(Randy Boswell/Canwest News Service via Ottawa Citizen, 27 April 2009) -- It’s an official tour aimed at celebrating the bi-national closeness of Canada and Norway. ... This week’s visit by Jean will focus partly on the shared Arctic interests of Canada and Norway. In a statement at the outset of the trip, the Governor General said the visit would be “an opportunity to explore new areas for partnerships and to highlight our concerns and priorities in terms of sustainable and human development in the Arctic.” Jean and her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, are to be greeted Tuesday in Oslo by Norway’s King Harald V and Queen Sonja.
Posted 27 April 2009; 4:09:11 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, International, Norway
Russian trawler sinks off Norway coast, captain dies
(RIA Novosti, 24 April 2009) -- MURMANSK - The captain of a Russian fishing boat died on Friday after being rescued along with the rest of his crew after their trawler sank in the Barents Sea near Norway's northern coast, Russian officials said. A Russian fishing industry official said the Koralnes, part of the Sevrybkom-1 company fleet, sank shortly after sending a distress signal at about 9:20 a.m. Moscow time (05:20 GMT). Fifteen crewmembers drifted in an inflatable raft until another Russian trawler picked them up, while two men spent sometime in the arctic water. "A Russian trawler rescued 15 Koralnes crewmembers from a raft, while a Norwegian rescue helicopter picked up the ship's captain and senior mechanic from the water," Sergei Vaganov said. Norwegian police said one of the two sailors, who were transported by a Sea Hawk helicopter to a hospital in the Norwegian city of Tromsoe, died from hypothermia. Another Russian official later confirmed that the captain of the ship had unexpectedly died in the hospital, despite arriving in a stable condition. Alexander Savelyev, a spokesman for the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery, said that in his opinion the cause of the tragedy was the poor state of the vessel, which was built in 1987, and complacency on the part of the ship's owner. "This 'second-hand'...vessel had no watertight bulkheads and it took on water within seven minutes," he said. He also said that another reason for the tragedy was the inattentiveness of the Sevrybkom-1 company to the technical state of its ships.
Posted 24 April 2009; 4:34:12 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Natural disasters and other problems, Nordic Region, Northwest / Russia, Norway
(Anita Thorolvsen Munch/Polaråret.no, 22 April 2009) -- Next week former Vice President Al Gore, foreign ministers and climate change scientists are heading for the town of Tromsø in Northern Norway to discuss the impacts of melting ice in Antarctica, the Arctic and mountain areas worldwide. On April 28. a number of foreign ministers from the Arctic Council states and several observer states are expected in Tomsø for the conference Melting Ice: Regional Dramas, Global Wake-Up Call. The event, wich will be co-hosted by former Vice President Al Gore and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, takes takes place the day before the Arctic Council's annual ministerial meeting. The parties meet to discuss the impact of melting ice in Antarctica, the Arctic and mountain areas worldwide. The Arctic is already being affected by climate change, with temperatures rising twice as fast as the global average. A changing Arctic in turn affects the global climate. ... Mr Gore and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre will make a statement on the topic addressing the need for policy responses at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen later this year. The Arctic Council's biennial ministerial meeting, which are held back-to-back with the conference also marks the end of the Norwegian Chairmanship. Denmark is going to take over the chairmanship for the next two years. Last Ministerial Meeting was held in Salekhard, Russia, in the autumn 2006.
Posted 24 April 2009; 4:31:13 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Conferences, meetings, and gatherings, Nordic Region, Norway
(upstreamonline, 22 April 2009) -- StatoilHydro may see its dominance eroded in Norway’s Arctic as ExxonMobil and Shell are set to bid in the country’s first frontier oil and natural gas licensing round for three years. Norway has offered 28 complete and partial blocks in the Barents Sea and 51 in the Norwegian Sea, which straddles the Arctic Circle. The permits will be awarded “sometime in the spring”, Jon Evang, an Oil Ministry spokesman, told Bloomberg, without being more specific. State-controlled StatoilHydro is the only producer in the Barents Sea, with the Snohvit gas field. It is also planning to develop the nearby Goliat oilfield with Italy’s Eni for $4 billion. ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell are among the 46 companies to request blocks, almost twice as many as in 2006. “StatoilHydro will have the most to lose,” Oswald Clint, an analyst at Sanford C Bernstein in London told Bloomber. “If it doesn’t find big enough discoveries, then they have to say: ‘Look, we have to shift focus and start exploring internationally’. In that arena they’re competing with everyone else.”
Posted 23 April 2009; 10:42:34 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources
Norway wants Svalbard in UNESCO
(IceNews, 14 April 2009) -- The Norwegian government has submitted a white paper to parliament stating that it is finally prepared to nominate Svalbard for the UNESCO World Heritage List. This designation is the highest international status a landmark can be given, and would increase the pressure within Norway to protect the pristine region. The government did not state which parts of the expansive and remote Svalbard Islands it planned to designate, but alluded to the fact that this would be determined during the nomination process, SIKUnews reports. Analysts believe they may try to nominate the area presently protected by the Svalbard Environmental Law, which was created by the Norwegian government to preserve the pristine archipelago. This area comprises 87 percent of the territorial waters and 65 percent of the landmass within the 12-nautical mile boundary currently under protection. Norway already has seven sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Svalbard has been a tentative nomination for two years already, but the government seems keen on finally pushing for its permanent protection. The application will be ready by the end of 2012, and the UNESCO World Heritage Committee will consider it at their meeting in 2014.
Posted 16 April 2009; 12:43:04 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway
UN backs Norway claim to Arctic seabed extension
(AFP, 15 April 2009) -- OSLO - Norway has won the backing of the UN in its sovereignty claim over a potentially resource rich area of seabed, including a region in the much-courted Arctic Ocean, the government said Wednesday. Based on the evidence supplied by Norway in 2006, the UN Commission for the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) approved Oslo's claim to the vast chunks of seabed in the Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean. "All that remains is to incorporate (the decision) into Norwegian law and then the extension of our continental shelf will be effective," said Rolf Einar Fife, director of legal affairs at the Norway's foreign ministry. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulates that any coastal state can claim territory 200 nautical miles from their shoreline and exploit the natural resources within that zone. Nations can also extend that limit to up to 350 nautical miles from their coast if they can provide scientific proof that the undersea continental plate is a natural extension of their territory. The CLCS decision means Norway's continental shelf has been extended by 235,000 square kilometres (146,000 square miles), or "the equivalent of seven football pitches" for each Norwegian citizen out of a population of 4.8 million, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said. The decision means Norway will benefit from exploitation rights in almost two million square kilometres in the Arctic region, Fife added. However, Norway has yet to agree with Russia how to share one chunk of the Barents Sea in its newly extended continental shelf, the so-called Loophole, which is believed to be rich in oil and gas.
Posted 15 April 2009; 10:11:10 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, International, Laws and legal, Nordic Region, Norway
Remarks by Secretary Clinton, Norwegian Foreign Minister Støre
(Remarks by Secretary Clinton, Norwegian Foreign Minister Støre, 6 April 2009) -- ...The United States appreciates Norway's leadership in the Arctic Council, and it's the current chair of that council. And we certainly are grateful for the minister's contribution to the success of today's joint session of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting and the Arctic Council. As Arctic members, as one of the five countries—Norway being another, Russia, Denmark, and Canada—whose landmasses all converge on the Arctic, it's important that we work together to ensure that any development in the Arctic takes into account the region's fragile ecological balance. In the months ahead as we move closer to December's UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, we will work closely with one another to ensure that that conference creates a viable framework for addressing the threat of climate change.
Posted 8 April 2009; 1:49:35 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, International, Nordic Region, North America, Norway, United States
Norwegian police let detained Russian cargo ship leave Bodo port
(RIA Novosti, 9 March 2009) -- STOCKHOLM, March 9 (RIA Novosti) - Norway's police have allowed a detained Russian dry cargo ship to leave the port of Bodø in the country's north. The Russian ship, the Mekhanik Tyulenev, is suspected of involvement in the collision with a Norwegian fishing boat, the Marina. The Mekhanik Tyulenev was ordered on March 3 to dock at Bodø to investigate a possible collision with the missing fishing boat. The Marina and its 68-year-old owner went missing off northwest Norway, near the island of Anda on the Vesteralen Archipelago on March 2. Norwegian police have radar data confirming that the Russian and Norwegian vessels were "very close to each other" before the Marina disappeared from radar screens. Police said the crew of the Russian vessel, en route to the Netherlands, were "surprised but cooperative." The vessel remained in Bodø until divers examined the hull of the vessel to check for marks left by any possible collision. "An inspection of the ship indicates that no traces of a collision with the Mekhanik Tyulenev have been discovered yet," Norwegian police said, adding that the Russian vessel has not been fully cleared of suspicion but that the suspicion has grown "much weaker."
Posted 10 March 2009; 9:31:17 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, International, Nordic Region, Northwest / Russia, Norway
Global seed vault hosts global warming meeting
(ENS, 26 February 2009) -- LONGYEARBYEN, Norway - Four tons of seeds representing hundreds of crop species were delivered today to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault as it celebrated its one-year anniversary. The vault in nothern Norway is intended to serve as a fail-safe backup should the original samples be lost or damaged or to provide a Noah's ark for agriculture in the event of a global catastrophe. The seeds arriving today are from food crop collections maintained by Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, the United States, and three international agricultural research centers in Syria, Mexico and Colombia. Located near the village of Longyearbyen on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, the repository has in one year amassed a collection of more than 400,000 unique seed samples—some 200 million seeds. ... "The vault was opened last year to ensure that one day all of humanity's existing food crop varieties would be safely protected from any threat to agricultural production, natural or man made. It's amazing how far we have come toward accomplishing that goal," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which operates the seed vault in partnership with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center in Sweden. To mark the anniversary of the vault, experts on global warming and its effects on food production have gathered in Longyearbyen to discuss how climate change could pose a major threat to food production, and to examine crop diversity's role in averting crisis. Speakers at the seminar "Frozen seeds in a frozen mountain—feeding a warming world" include the authors of a study published last month in Science magazine warning that by the end of this century the average temperatures during growing seasons in many regions will probably be higher than the most extreme heat recorded over the last 100 years. ... The vault at Svalbard has so far received duplicates of nearly half of the crop samples maintained by the genebanks of the international agricultural research centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.
Posted 27 February 2009; 12:30:54 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Environment and Landscape, Flora and Fauna, International, Nordic Region, Norway
Doomsday seed vault's stores are growing
(AFP, 16 February 2009) -- CHICAGO — The stores of seeds in a "doomsday" vault in the Norwegian Arctic are growing as researchers rush to preserve 100,000 crop varieties from potential extinction. The imperiled seeds are going to be critical for protecting the global food supply against devastating crop losses as a result of climate change, said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. "These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation," Fowler said. "You can't imagine a solution to climate change without crop diversity." That's because the crops currently being used by farmers will not be able to evolve quickly enough on their own to adjust to predicted drought, rising temperatures and new pests and diseases, he said. One recent study found that corn yields in Africa will fall by 30 percent by 2030 unless heat-resistant varieties are developed, Fowler noted. "Evolution is in our control," he said in an interview. "It's in our seed bank. You take traits form different varieties and make new ones." That process currently takes about 10 years. But Fowler said his organization is hoping to speed up the development of new varieties by cataloguing the genetic traits of the seeds that it stores. Their gene bank—dug into a mountainside near Longyearbyen, in the Svalbard islands in the far north of Norway—will be made public to help spur research, which Fowler says is woefully inadequate. "Six people in the world are breeding bananas. Ditto for yams, a major crop in Africa," Fowler said ahead of a presentation Sunday to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Posted 17 February 2009; 2:02:31 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Europe, International, Nordic Region, Norway
Helicopter crash kills 1 in Norwegian Arctic
(AP via Taiwan Times, 4 February 2009) -- Rescuers say a small helicopter crashed in the Norwegian Arctic and one person on board was killed. Norway's Rescue Coordination Center says a second person suffered minor injuries when the Eurocopter AS350 went down in heavy snow showers near the Swedish border. Recuse leader Anne Holm Gundersen says it is unclear why the aircraft crashed Wednesday during a flight from its base in the northern town of Harstad to Alta. Only two people were on board the five-passenger craft owned by Harstad company HeliTeam. The company said both were Norwegian but did not identify them by name.
Posted 6 February 2009; 10:40:01 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Natural disasters and other problems, Nordic Region, Norway
Russian trawler sinking in Arctic, crew rescued
(Reuters via The Star Online (Malaysia), 14 January 2009) -- OSLO - A Russian trawler is sinking in Arctic waters off northern Norway and 19 crew members have been picked up by another Russian vessel, a Norwegian rescue official said on Tuesday. "I can confirm that 19 persons have been picked up," Geir Mortensen, spokesman for Norway's Joint Rescue Coordination Centres, said on Norwegian commercial television TV 2 news. The crew went to lifeboats before being rescued off the island of Bjoernoya in the Barents Sea by another Russian trawler in the vicinity, he said. Norwegian online news service Nettavisen reported that the captain of the Topaz had died and the vessel had sunk, citing an official at the shipowner JSC Murmansk Trawlfleet. Rescue officials could not confirm that the ship had sunk or whether the captain was among those rescued or not. Mortensen said two helicopters with medical personnel aboard were flying to the Russian vessel that picked up the men near Bjoernoya, the southernmost island of the Svalbard archipelago. He said it was not clear what caused the shipwreck. "We got a report that it was listing and taking on water," he said.
Posted 13 January 2009; 2:25:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Natural disasters and other problems, Norway
Enlarged nature reserve around Bear Island
(Svalbardposten via The Norway Post) The nature reserve around the Norwegian Bear Island (Bjørnoya) in the Barents Sea will be expanded, as a measure to help preserve the environment in the Barents Sea and around Svalbard. This was announced by the Norwegian government this week. Until now, the nature reserve around the Bear Island has extended four nautical miles off the coast of the Island. In future the border line will be drawn 12 nautical miles off the coastline. The nature reserve will now include 177 square kilometres on the island itself and 2805 square kilometres of ocean. The Bear Island is a main habitat for seabirds in the Barents Sea, and the island has one of Europe's largest colonies of breeding guillemot, and is vulnerable to climate changes.
Posted 18 December 2008; 10:51:48 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Environment and Landscape, Nordic Region, Norway
New logistics centre for the High North
(NRK via The Norway Post, 27 November 2008) -- An initiative by the shipping industry to establish a new Norwegian Centre for High North Logistics to be located at Kirkenes, was presented Wednesday. This will be a centre of expertise for the development of sustainable solutions for transport and logistics in the High North. "Knowledge of maritime transport and logistics is the key to value creation in the High North. Now we will have the opportunity to be a frontrunner internationally,†said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere at the presentation. The initiative for the Centre, including its endowed professorship scheme, was taken by the shipping industry, with Tschudi Shipping in the lead. Tschudi Shipping will provide NOK 6 million in funding for the Centre over a five-year period. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will match this sum, through its Barents 2020 programme. The Norwegian Shipowners Association, the High North Centre for Business and Governance at Bodoe University College and the Norwegian School of Management are also contributing to the project, which will also seek Russian partners in the long term. "This is a new and exciting form of collaboration, which will raise the level of knowledge about an area that is of great strategic importance to the High North. Companies, authorities and expert groups are showing willingness to cooperate so that greater knowledge can result in increased value creation. The melting of ice in the Arctic is opening up new transport routes. Ensuring good, safe solutions for transportation is crucial if we are to take advantage of these opportunities," Mr Stoere emphasised. “I have high expectations of the contribution the endowed professorship and the Centre will be able to make to developing knowledge about—and solutions for—transport and logistics in the High North,” the Norwegian Foreign Minister said.
Posted 1 December 2008; 12:20:22 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
New restrictions for Russians at Spitsbergen
(NRK via BarentsObserver, 25 November 2008) -- The Norwegian governor of the Svalbard Archipelago today said that Russian activities at the archipelago will be subjected to new restrictions, NRK reports. Several more Norwegian laws now apply also for Russian activities at the archipelago, Governor Per Sefland said in a public meeting today. The governor signaled that Norwegian authorities will tighten their grip over the Russian population at the far northern islands, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reports. "From now on, the control of the Russian activities will be far stricter than before," Mr. Sefland said.About 500 Russians and Ukrainians now live and work in the settlement of Barentsburg. The Norwegian authorities on the islands are based in the nearby town of Longyearbyen. Norway has sovereignty over the Svalbard Archipelago in line with Paris Treaty of 1920. However, also the other signatory countries are entitled to engage in industrial activities in the area, but then only in accordance with Norwegian law.
Posted 27 November 2008; 8:07:04 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Laws and legal, Nordic Region, Norway
(Jesper Hansen/Arctic Council News, 13 November 2008) -- This year's second SAO Meeting in the Arctic Council will be held in one of the most important Saami villages in the northernmost part of Norway Next week—the 19th and 20th November—the village Kautokeino in the Norwegian Finnmark, the northernmost part of Norway, will be the capital of the Arctic world when Arctic Council has one of its so called SAO Meetings there. The SAO Meetings are the highest ranking administrative level in the Arctic Council. These meetings are held twice a year. The meeting will bring 170 people together from the eight member countries, observer countries, other observers and not least the six Permanent Participants—organizations representing Arctic indigenous peoples in the Arctic Council. The primarily goal for the meeting is to prepare next years ministerial meeting in Tromsø. Arctic Council ministerial meetings are held biennial. Next meeting will be in Tromsø and marks the end of the two years of Norwegian Chairmanship. Following Norway Denmark will take over the chairmanship. Kautokeino is often seen as one of the most important Saami villages in Norway. The people there have been preparing the meeting for a long time and look forward to introduce the participants in the meeting to traditional Saami food and activities like lasso throwing. The people in Kautokeino have also prepared a special homepage to introduce the village to the many participants in the meeting. The homepage can be seen [here].
Posted 13 November 2008; 7:24:07 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, Greenland / Denmark, Iceland, International, Nordic Region, Norway, Russia, Sweden, United States
Norway and Iceland sign border treaty
(BarentsObserver, 5 November 2008) -- This week Norway and Iceland signed a treaty which outlines the framework of oil and gas exploration on the continental shelf between Jan Mayen and Iceland. Norwegian minister of Foreign Affaires, Jonas Gahr Støre, says to Fiskeribladet Fiskaren that Norway has worked closely with Iceland in finding oil and gas resources on the continental shelf. The treaty signed this week outlines an agreement in the border areas between Iceland and the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen. Iceland is planning to open areas in the north-eastern part of its continental shelf called the "Northern Dreki Area", for oil and gas exploration. "The treaty gives us predictability and a good framework for both government officials and commercial companies exploring the area," says Støre. A treaty from 1981 gives Norway the right to a 25 percent participation in a limited part of Iceland's continental shelf. The new treaty clarifies better the terms in the 1981 agreement. The new treaty is signed only three days after the Norwegian Bank gave the Icelandic Government a loan of approximately 1 million EUR. The loan is a part of Norway;s support to Iceland in their struggle to turn around the financial crisis the country are going through.
Posted 5 November 2008; 11:39:57 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, Iceland, Laws and legal, North Atlantic, Norway
Closure of base sparks criticism
(Barents Observer, 5 November 2008) -- Amid its bid to step up a military presence in the High North, Norway has nonetheless decided to abandon its Arctic navy base of Olavsvern. The decision to abandon the base, located outside Tromsø, has spurred protests from powerful groups in the Norwegian Armed Forces, the Barents Observer says. These groups argue that the Norwegian parliament made a major mistake when it decided to close the base. A letter from the Norwegian Naval Society (Norges Sjømilitære Samfund) says the base is of major importance and that it should be included in the Norwegian government High North strategy. The leader of this organization, Bjørn Krohn, told NRK that many Navy representatives now are angry with the decision to close down the base, the northernmost of Norway's navy bases. "Since the Russian Northern Fleet has started to move around in the North, it would be a major mistake to abandon Olavsvern, the newest and most modern Navy base of Norway," he said. Several politicians also say they want parliament to reassess the issue. Since 2003, the small base was under the bigger Haakonsvern base outside Bergen and no units were permanently stationed there. The primary military task of the base has been to support Norwegian submarines and military torpedo boats operating outside northern Norway.
Posted 5 November 2008; 11:22:54 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Nordic Region, Norway, Social Issues
StatoilHydro strikes gas in Barents Sea
(AP via Yahoo! News, 31 October 2008) -- OSLO, Norway - Norwegian oil company StatoilHydro ASA said Friday that it had struck natural gas near its Snoehvit offshore field in the Barents Sea. The company estimated the size of the Arctic find at 2-14 billion cubic meters (70-495 billion cubic feet) of recoverable natural gas. "It is, of course, promising that we once more have proven gas in the Barents Sea," said Geir Richardsen, head of exploration activities in the far north for StatoilHydro. "We need time to make an evaluation and analyses to understand the volume and size of the find." The discovery was 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of the Snoehvit development and 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Norway's northernmost town, Hammerfest. In September 2007, Snoehvit, which means Snow White, became the first offshore field to begin production in the frigid waters of the Barents Sea, which Norway shares with Russia. Norway, a major oil and natural gas exporter, has been pushing the search for new reserves, especially oil, into the Arctic, hoping for new finds to offset slowly dwindling crude production from fields in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea. Discoveries near existing fields, such as StatoilHydro's latest find, can often be developed at sharply reduced costs because they can be linked into existing infrastructure. State-controlled StatoilHydro, based in the western Norwegian city of Stavanger, and its subsidiaries own 100 percent of the exploration block.
Posted 5 November 2008; 10:31:50 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources
Global warming threatens lemmings in Norway
(Kate Ravilious/National Geographic News, 5 November 2008) -- Climate change may be responsible for shrinking lemming populations in Norway, a new study shows. As a result, the lack of the small mammals is cascading through the ecosystem, forcing predators to find different food sources. Lemming populations throughout Scandinavia tend to explode naturally every three to five years, causing huge numbers to go in search of food. Occasionally this leads the rodents to jump into water and swim to new pastures new—the origin of the myth that lemmings commit mass suicide. When lemmings boom, they're hard to miss. Norwegians have had to use snowplows to clear the squashed rodents off the roads. In recent years, however, outbreaks have become a rarity in many parts of Scandinavia. Kyrre Kausrud, a professor at the University of Oslo in Norway, and his colleagues analyzed lemming boom-bust cycles since 1970 for one site in southern Norway. Their findings are reported tomorrow in the journal Nature. The data revealed that lemmings in this region have not had a population explosion since 1994. Climate data collected over the same period suggest that warmer temperatures can explain why the rodents' numbers have remained low for more than a decade.
Posted 5 November 2008; 9:22:41 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Environment and Landscape, Flora and Fauna, Nordic Region, Norway
Burping moose bad for the environment
(Aftenposten, 31 October 2008) -- Amidst all the talk about carbon dioxide emissions and global warming comes news that Norway's national mascot may be contributing to the destruction of the environment, through burping and other bodily functions. The country's so-called "King of the Forest" hasn't been widely viewed as having any really nasty personal habits, surely none that could be considered an environmental threat. But now some researchers linked to Norway's technical university (NTNU) in Trondheim contend that moose are responsible for tons of gas emissions a year through their frequent burping and, well, farting. "Shoot a moose and save yourself a climate quota," joked moose researcher (and moose hunter) Reidar Andersen at NTNU to newspaper VG on Tuesday. He's published a book on the life of a moose. And he's only half joking. The research web site www.forskning.no has calculated that the annual gas emissions from a moose are equal to those from an individual's 36 flights between Oslo and Trondheim. A grown moose will burp and pass so much methane gas in the course of a year that it amounts to 2,100 kilos of carbon dioxide emissions. Newspaper VG reported that a motorist would have to drive 13,000 kilometers in a car to emit the same.
Posted 31 October 2008; 8:38:34 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Flora and Fauna, Nordic Region, Norway
Hurtigruten fighting for survival
(NRK Troms & Finnmark via BarentsObserver, 4 September 2008) -- The Norwegian Coastal Steamer, Hurtigruten, is in serious financial trouble. If the situation is not solved it could lead to bankruptcy of the famous tourist attraction. The end of Hurtigruten would be catastrophe for the tourist industry in northern Norway. The management of Hurtigruten ASA is today meets with the Norwegian Minister of Transport and Communications, Liv Signe Navarsete in Bergen. Several Norwegian politicians now call on the Government to take actions to resolve Hurtigruten's critical situation. Hurtigruten has 1800 employees which operate the 11 vessels sailing daily between Bergen and Kirkenes on the Norwegian coast. Many local businesses in the respective ports are dependent on the income from passengers going on and off the Hurtigruten. From before, the Government is annually granting Hurtigruten 31 million EUR in support of the company's sailing from Bergen to Kirkenes with stops in 34 ports. Hurtigruten had a turnover of 480 million EUR in 2007, but the annual account showed a deficit of 28 million EUR. So far this year, the company has had a deficit of 24 million EUR only in the first six months. At the same time last year, the deficit was "only" 4 million EUR. The financial problems are mainly due to large investments in new ships over the last ten years. During the summer season Hurtigruten runs well with many passengers, but with too few passengers in the winter season the income is not good enough to cover all costs. Hurtigruten has advertised three of their ships for sale and will dock one of their ships in the coming winter season to save money.
Posted 6 September 2008; 12:59:43 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Nordic Region, Norway, Tourism / Perspectives, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
The shoe cleaner who wants to save Svalbard
(Christoph Seidler/Spiegel Online, 2 September 2008)** -- As Arctic temperatures warm, the threat of invasive species grows. One path for travelling seeds is on the bottom of unsuspecting tourists' shoes. A young Australian researcher is doing what he can to tackle the problem. The gigantic polar bear is one of the first things that newcomers to the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic notice when they arrive at the Longyearbyen Airport. ... But not far away from the bears sits 26-year-old Chris Ware, waiting for his moment. When visitors are done checking out the local taxidermy, Ware moves in—asking to look at the soles of new arrivals' shoes. "Free Shoe Cleaning" announces a sign made by the red-headed Australian, who studies at the University of Tasmania. Travellers tend to be confused at first, but Ware has his explanation ready. "The idea is to prevent the introduction of new plants species that could spread uncontrollably, damaging the sensitive ecosystem of the archipelago," he said. Visitors carrying seeds in the grooves of their walking shoes to Svalbard without knowing it could create grave ecological problems. "Once the new species are here, there is practically nothing that can be done about it." Ware's worries are not unfounded. Humans have already introduced about 20 new plant species to the islands, according to Inger Greve Alsos. Alsos is a professor at the state-of-the-art University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) which keeps a database of all the plants on the archipelago. One of the unwanted species on her list is the wild radish, spotted near polar research station in Ny-Ålesund in north-western Svalbard. How it got there nobody knows.
Posted 2 September 2008; 9:58:06 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Norway, Research / Reports
National parks in conflict with reindeer industry
(NRK Troms and Finnmark via BarentsObserver, 2 September 2008) -- An 1800 square kilometres national park was opened in north-eastern Norway last weekend by the Norwegian Minister of Environment, Eirik Solheim. However, the president of the Sami Parliament, Egil Olli, is sceptical to the establishment of several national parks in Sami areas. The recently opened national park in eastern Finnmark called Varanger Peninsula National Park is situated in an area which the Norwegian Sami people also are using for reindeer industry. The president of the Sami Parliament, Egil Olli, says to NRK that he believes that this national park could be the last one in a Sami area. "With the establishment of a national park there will also be introduced restrictions for the people using the area. Therefore it is very important for us that the interests of the local population and the Sami people are ensured," says Olli. Olli fears that more national parks will infect and make it harder for Sami people to continue with reindeer industry. The Minister of the Environment, Eirik Solheim, can not promise Olli that this newly opened national park is the last one in Sami areas. However, he promises that the government will have a close cooperation with the Sami Parliament on possible conflicts related to new national parks. The Government has a plan to establish 16 new national parks in Norway over the next years.
Posted 2 September 2008; 9:21:15 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, Indigenous Issues, Nordic Region, Norway, Resource Issues
Norway to host Arctic Indigenous Language Symposium
(Thorleifur Petursson/IceNews, 2 september 2008) -- The leaders of the Arctic’s aboriginal groups will meet in Tromso, Norway this autumn to discuss the preservation of their respective languages. Most Arctic indigenous languages are quickly disappearing, and this symposium will explore ways to encourage their revitalisation. It’s a typical syndrome of globalisation when smaller ethnic groups adopt more popular languages with each passing generation. The indigenous groups that have called the Arctic region home for millennia are perfect examples of this dilemma, but have resolved to gather in Norway to address the problem. More than 40 delegates, speaking nearly as many different circumpolar languages, plan to meet in Tromso, Norway on 20-21 October for the Arctic Indigenous Languages Symposium. Organised by the Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada and the Saami Council of northern Scandinavia, this two-day conference will hopefully create ideas to encourage the younger members of their shrinking ethnic groups to learn and maintain their traditional languages.
Posted 2 September 2008; 6:40:21 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conferences, meetings, and gatherings, Cultural Matters, Indigenous Issues, Nordic Region, Norway
(Sven Goll/Aftenposten, 13 August 2008) -- The wreck of the decommissioned Russian cruiser Murmansk, will be removed from the rocks outside the fishing village of Sørvær in Northern Norway. "The Government is taking local worries about the wreck seriously," writes the minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, Helga Pedersen, in a press statement Wednesday. She and a handful of experts are meeting the inhabitants of Sørvær on Thursday to answer questions they may have about the Murmansk or its removal. The Radiation Protection Authority and the Coastal Administration have checked the ship for radioactivity and the Marine Research Institute has taken samples of the seabed, of fish and mussels, to see if they might contain PCB, heavy metals or other toxic materials. After 14 years denying that the wreck represented a danger, Norwegian authorities decided last week to check the Murmansk again immediately. She denies that this is a populist measure. "Two weeks ago the people of Sørvær were told that there might be radioactive materials on the Murmansk. What right has society to demand that the inhabitant live with this uncertainty," says Pedersen. Helga Pedersen promises that all findings will be made public. She also says that the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs will send the bill for clearing the site to the wreck's owner or other responsible parties.
Posted 22 August 2008; 2:42:54 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Contaminants and Pollution, Environment and Landscape, Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Threat to Arctic indigenous languages sparks international meeting
(CBC News, 12 August 2008) -- Arctic aboriginal leaders plan to meet in Norway this fall to discuss the circumpolar world's indigenous languages, many of which have shrinking numbers of speakers. More than 40 delegates, representing 30 to 40 different languages, will meet in Tromso, Norway, for the Arctic Indigenous Languages Symposium on Oct. 20-21. The two-day symposium is being organized by the Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada and the Saami Council of northern Scandinavia. "It's to get the circumpolar indigenous groups together to discuss the status of their languages, to try and come up with ideas in regards to revitaliz[ing] it," Duane Smith, president of Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada, told CBC News on Monday. Smith, who is from the Inuvialuit region of the western Arctic, said many in his own generation of Inuvialuit people do not know their mother tongue enough to use it. Similar scenarios are unfolding in other areas of the circumpolar world, he said. "For the most part, they're not being used enough with the younger generations in the circumpolar Arctic and they're not being well-promoted by their respective regions," he said. About 16 delegates from the governments of eight Arctic nations are also invited, along with guest speakers. Carl Christian Olsen of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Greenland said governments have been invited because they need to get more closely involved on the issue of indigenous languages. "We'll be able to develop a better dialogue with them," he said.
Posted 13 August 2008; 7:48:38 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conferences, meetings, and gatherings, Cultural Matters, Indigenous Issues, International, Norway
(Sven Goll/Aftenposten, 5 August 2008) -- More than a hundred Norwegian soldiers fleeing head over heels from superior Soviet forces died in Karelia June 25, 1944. The Norwegian SS-Skijäger Battalion was annihilated. DNA tests may now give answers about their fates to their relatives. About 6,000 Norwegians volunteered to fight against the Soviet Union with the German occupiers during the Second World War. After the war, survivors were sent to prison for collaborating with the enemy. However, more than 700 died on the Eastern Front. According to author and former resistance fighter Svein Blindheim, the encounter at the Kaprolat and Hasselmann hills in Northern Karelia was the worst fighting seen by any Norwegian unit. "In the course of two days the Ski battalion was almost completely wiped out. The Norwegians were on their own and felt left down by the German division behind them," says Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Professor of Government at the University of Bergen. He heads the Kaprolat Committee which aims to identify the remains of the Norwegian SS soldiers who died in this part of the Arctic wilderness. Three weeks of digging have unearthed a further 23 bodies. Five of them have been identified by their ID-tags and another through the inscription on his wedding ring. Samples from the other 17 will be sent to a research institute in Tuzla in Bosnia which specializes in identifying skeletons from DNA. "Now we have to rely on relatives in order to match the DNA," says Ugelvik Larsen. Previously around 30 Norwegians have been found in the same area, but very few of them have been identified so far.
Posted 7 August 2008; 3:21:38 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway
(Aftenposten, 10 July 2008) -- Norway's indigenous Sami people are about to be met a bit more often on their own terms. A new government mandate calls for public servants to learn at least a little of the Sami language. "We are two peoples in one country," notes Egil Olli, president of the Sami parliament. "It will be very positive for everyone if more people showed some interest in the Sami language, and in that way also showed interest in Sami culture and lifestyles." Ole Henrik Magga, one of Olli's predecessors who led a UN forum on indigenous peoples, agrees. Knowledge of a language is the most important entry point to other peoples and cultures, noted Magga, who also is a professor of the Sami language and has followed its development for years. Interest in learning what Norwegians call the samisk language is greater than it has been for a long time, reports newspaper Aftenposten. Townships are obliged to offer Sami as a language course if students want it. Norwegians discovering Sami family roots often become keen on trying to learn the language as well. Earlier Norwegian regimes tried to replace the Sami language with Norwegian, or make Sami more Norwegian. In 1902, a controversial law was imposed that allowed only those who spoke, read and wrote Norwegian to legally own land. Norwegian teachers from Oslo were placed in Sami boarding schools in the north. But the Sami language did not die out, despite the Norwegian authorities' efforts at the time. Now the UN has ensured its survival, and the Norwegian government is making efforts to strengthen the language and expand its use.
Posted 11 July 2008; 12:03:56 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Cultural Matters, Indigenous Issues, Nordic Region, Norway
Star-studded team head for the Arctic
(Aftenposten, 10 July 2008) -- Four years ago Hilary Clinton and John McCain went to the Svalbard, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, to discuss climate change and global warming. Now a delegation of leading Americans, are making the same journey. "The purpose of the trip is to understand better what is happening to the Arctic and the dramatic changes that are occurring there. We are told that all of the sea ice could disappear during the summer months within five years," says former U.S Senator Tom Daschle to the Rapid City Journal. The trip is organized by the National Geographic, and those taking part will spend 10 days in the Arctic on the "Endeavor". The main settlement on Svalbard at Longyearbyen will be one of the stops on the way. Former president Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, CNN owner Ted Turner and former U.S Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will be on the tour. The best known participant from Europe is Prince Albert of Monaco. Google founder Larry Paige and chief executives for Shell-US and Chevron also are on the tour. The Norwegian Minister for the environment Erik Solheim is happy to see so many leading Americans showing an interest in both climate change and coming to Norway. He points out that both Republicans and Democrats are among the participants, giving the tour a bipartisan complexion.
Posted 10 July 2008; 11:58:37 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway
UNESCO may block oil drilling off scenic Lofoten
(Aftenposten, 9 July 2008) -- The UN may add the scenic Lofoten islands off the coast of Arctic Norway to UNESCO's World Heritage Site list. This would put an end to the ongoing debate about whether to allow the oil industry access to the continental shelf in the area. Norway's cabinet minister for environmental issues Erik Solheim visited the scenic Lofoten archipelago this week and was met by widespread opposition to the prospect of oil exploration and drilling in the area. The mayors of all the local townships in the area made it clear they oppose any offshore drilling, while environmental activists also repeated their opposition. Solheim, who comes from a political party (the Socialist Left, SV) that also opposes drilling, acknowledged that he was skeptical of drilling proposals, but noted the government itself had made no formal conclusion on the issue. He noted with a smile, however, that if Lofoten is added to UNESCO's list of world heritage sites, any drilling would be automatically ruled out. That could resolve the issue once and for all, and Solheim suggested that local governments in the area speed up attempts to win UNESCO recognition. The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate is currently acquiring seismic data in the Lofoten basin. Fishermen fear that shock waves from the tests scare adult fish away and harm hatchling fish. The fishing lobby was willing to accept six weeks of exploration between harvesting seasons, but technical difficulties have meant that this period has been extended to four months.
Posted 9 July 2008; 1:58:38 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Cultural Matters, Environment and Landscape, International, Nordic Region, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Resource Issues
Gas discovery in the Barents Sea
(The Norway Post, 5 July 2008) -- StatoilHydro has confirmed the existence of gas in the Ververis prospect in the Barents Sea, whereas an exploration well in the Stetind prospect in the Norwegian Sea turned out to be dry. During the drilling of exploration well 7226/2-1 in the Barents Sea StatoilHydro, the operator of the licence, has struck gas in a prospect named Ververis. The drilling in 347 metres of water was performed by the Polar Pioneer drilling rig. This is the 13th discovery on the Norwegian continental shelf that StatoilHydro is involved in this year. The main purpose of the well was to confirm the existence of hydrocarbons in early Jurassic to mid-Jurassic sandstones. The well confirmed the existence of gas in mid-Jurassic sandstones. No gas/water contact was established. Nor has any formation leak-off test been conducted, but extensive data acquisition and sampling have taken place. ”It is of course promising that we have discovered gas, but the drilling was performed in a relatively complex formation. We therefore need to perform more analyses and evaluations in order to determine the resource potential of the discovery,” says Bente Fotland at StatoilHydro’s Harstad office. The well was drilled to a vertical depth of 2992 metres below the sea surface and completed in the lower Triassic Havert formation. The well will now be permanently plugged and abandoned.
Posted 9 July 2008; 1:45:41 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Resource Issues
Sub-prime chill reaches the Arctic
(Gwladys Fouché/The Guardian, 30 June 2008) -- Narvik, Norway - At this time of year, night does not fall in Narvik, a Norwegian town 140 miles north of the Polar Circle. The midnight sun shines over the industrial town and the stunning mountains and fjords surrounding it. But the town has been plunged into a dark financial storm. This Arctic municipality of 18,000 inhabitants is the surprise victim of the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, an example of how far-reaching its impact has been. Narvik, together with seven other small communities across Norway, have lost tens of millions of pounds in complex investments that went south as a direct result of the global financial squeeze. This means that Narvik, the site of the second world war battle, faces an uphill struggle to ensure the funding of its public services. "There are going to be cuts in healthcare, schools, elderly care, youth clubs, sport activities," lists opposition local councillor Torgeir Trældal. "People don't understand that the crisis will have such an impact. They have a right to be angry. It's sad." At the heart of the crisis is the decision by Narvik to invest £24m of its public funds into securities put together by US bank Citigroup. These products were marketed and sold via a Norwegian brokerage firm, Terra Securities. Narvik's leaders say they did not know these products were high-risk, with most thinking that they were investing in domestic companies, rather than outside Norway, as was the case. When the credit crunch hit last summer, the town lost around £18m, coming on top of other debts Narvik ran up.
Posted 30 June 2008; 2:14:50 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Economic and Commerce Issues, Nordic Region, Norway
Norway to restrict travel to Svalbard in Arctic Ocean to protect environment
(Xinhua News Agency, 30 June 2008) -- STOCKHOLM - The Norwegian government said Monday that it would restrict travel to Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean to protect the vulnerable natural environment there, according to reports reaching here from Oslo. Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, between Norway and the North Pole. Cruise traffic to the islands has increased tenfold in just a few years and this summer more than 30,000 tourists will also visit there. "We must restrict the traffic to Svalbard because the eastern part of the archipelago is one of the most vulnerable nature in the world," Norwegian Minister of Environment and International Development Erik Solheim told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. The Norwegian environmental protection authorities have decided that most of Eastern Svalbard would be closed to tourists, apart from a few chosen spots, where tourists will be allowed to land, the NRK said.
Posted 30 June 2008; 2:08:28 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, Environment and Landscape, Nordic Region, Norway
Arctic island might remain untouched
(Nordlys via BarentsObserver, 11 June 2008) -- The Norwegian island of Jan Mayen should be turned into a nature reserve, the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management believes. The directorate wants Jan Mayen to remain an isolated and untouched Arctic island. The reserve should also include the surrounding waters and the sea bottom, the directorate maintains in a press release. The 373 square kilometre big island has glaciers and volcanoes. It lies 600 km north of Iceland and 500 km east of central Greenland. The Norwegian directorate wants to turn the whole island into a nature reserve, except two minor areas where an existing meteorological station and a navigation installations are located. The proposal will now be assessed by the Ministry of Environment. Further east in the Barents Sea, Russian authorities plan to establish a major nature reserve including both the northern parts of Novaya Zemlya and the Franz Josef Land.
Posted 11 June 2008; 5:22:51 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Governance, Legislation, Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, North Atlantic, Norway
Russia and Norway tackle Arctic sea border issue
(Wojciech Moskwa/Reuters via Yahoo! News, 9 June 2008) -- OSLO - Russia and Norway meet on Monday and Tuesday in the hope of making progress in a decades-old dispute over their maritime border in the Barents Sea—a part of the Arctic that could hold large oil and gas reserves. Officials have said the Barents Sea could become an important new source of petroleum to supply Europe, but development has been hindered by the dispute. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying: "I am convinced that we will make progress in the negotiations" by the website BarentsObserver.com ahead of the talks with his Norwegian counterpart, Jonas Gahr Stoere. But Norway said it had seen no sign of progress. "Of course when ministers meet in that part of the world it (the border dispute) is a natural part of the agenda," a spokeswoman for the Norwegian foreign ministry said. "It is difficult to predict how the negotiations will proceed." A year ago Russia and Norway agreed to set the border for a small swathe of sea through one fjord, raising hopes of progress on the entire area, which is about half the size of Germany. But a senior official from Norway's Petroleum and Energy Ministry told an oil industry forum later in 2007 that an overall accord was "as near as ever."
Posted 11 June 2008; 4:42:27 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Governance, Legislation, Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, International, Nordic Region, Northwest / Russia, Norway, Russia
Norway invests in Arctic monitoring
(NRK via BarentsObserver, 2 June 2008) -- The Norwegian Foreign Ministry will invest a major sum in the development of an extensive new surveillance system for the High North. With the help of satellites, ships, airplanes, radar systems and sensors at sea, Norway will have the whole picture. The project has the name "The Barents Sea on screen", and enables Norwegian authorities to get a real-time situation picture from the area. Foreign Minister St—re says to broadcaster NRK that the system is civilian, and not military, and that climate, environment and shipping is the main focus. "We will have the possibility to follow the development and see what is happening, so that we can react if an accident or other incidents take place," Minister Støre says. He underlines that the area is environmentally vulnerable and that a short-response time is vital. He maintains that information about the area today is too fragmented and that the new system will help coordinate data. Several experts do however believe that the new system will trigger reactions from Russia. Researcher Julia Wilhelmsen from the Norwegian Institute of International Relations (NUPI) says to NRK that the system even might mark the start of a new and "more realistic" approach towards the region. The technology is expected to cost several hundred million Norwegian kroner. The Sintef research institute is project leader.
Posted 2 June 2008; 8:31:59 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Autonomy, Governance, Legislation, Circumpolar News, Nordic Region, Norway, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Norway opens season for oil hunters in fish-rich Lofoten area of Northern Norway
(Tone Foss Aspevoll, Charles Digges/Bellona Foundation, 22 May 2008) -- OFF THE COAST OF LOFOTEN, Northwest Norway - Despite protests from Bellona and other environmental organisations who say they are readying acts of civil disobedience, the Norwegian Oil and Energy is set to begin collecting seismic data off the coast of Norway's northerly Lofoten region. The basis for the environmentally disruptive project is a report from Norway's Institute of Marine studies that even the institute itself acknowledges gives less than a complete picture of how the Oil and Energy's prospecting could impact the environment. Bellona's Kallinika is already in the area, and Bellona President Frederic Hauge said that acts of civil disobedience targeting the vessel taking the seismic readings in the area have not been ruled out. Fishermen in the area have also expressed outrage at the oil-prospecting project, which they say will threaten their livelihoods by scaring fish out of their prime fishing territories and interfere with haddock spawning. The areas below the waters of the Lofoten region are considered to contain major amounts of oil and the Norwegian oil industry has long considered the area to be one of its most promising oil boomtowns. At issues is the spawning of haddock, which the Ministry of Oil and Industry promises it will not disturb by remaining at least 50 kilometres off shore during the haddock spawning season. But environmentalists and fisherman say that will not be enough, and that spawning season has not yet ended. The seismic date collection project got the go ahead after the Ministry of Oil and Energy struck a compromise with the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal affairs.
Posted 25 May 2008; 1:54:52 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Environment and Landscape, Nordic Region, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources
Heirs to the thrones of Demark, Norway and Sweden to visit Svalbard
(DPA/Europe World News via Earth Times, 23 May 2008) -- Oslo - Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, Danish Crown Prince Frederik and Swedish Crown Princess Victoria were slated to visit the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard next month, the Norwegian palace said Friday. The June 21-27 visit to Svalbard, off northern Norway, was aimed at highlighting the ongoing International Polar Year that ends in March 2009. "It is fantastic that the three royal heirs together mark the International Polar Year in this manner," said Olav Orheim, head of the Norwegian IPY secretariat. The three heirs to the thrones of the Scandinavian countries are all patrons of the polar year committees in their respective countries. The three royals were to spend most of their visit onboard the Swedish research vessel Oden, an ice-breaker, where polar researchers were to brief them on recent findings. (See also, The Local, "Heirs to Scandinavian thrones to meet in Arctic," 23 May 2008).
Posted 25 May 2008; 12:27:20 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, Nordic Region, Norway
Norway proceeds with oil plans in Lofoten
(BarentsObserver, 20 May 2008) -- The Norwegian Ministry of Oil and Energy has started its controversial collection of seismic data in the waters outside Lofoten, northern Norway. Meanwhile, environmentalists get ready for civil disobedience in the area. Despite major criticism from the local fishing industry and from environmental groups, the Norwegian oil ministry these days starts up seismic scanning in the Lofoten waters. The decision has already made environmental organisation Bellona send a ship towards the area. Bellona leader Frederic Hauge says the seismic scanning is “very worrying considering that this the spawning season for the fish”. He does not rule out that civil disobedience against the seismic vessel will be initiated, NRK reports. The seismic activities got green light from government after a compromise was found between the Ministry of Oil and Energy and the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs. According to the agreement, the seismic activities will be halted in the period of haddock fishing. In addition, the seismic vessel will stay at least 50 km off the coast in order to not disturb the spawning cod, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate writes in a press release. The Lofoten waters are believed to conceal major amounts of oil, and the Norwegian oil industry considers the area among the most promising on the Norwegian shelf. The seismic scanning will this summer be conducted on the Troms-II and Nordland VII blocks. The fish industry remains highly sceptical towards the plans.
Posted 22 May 2008; 1:44:36 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources
Climate change threatens Norway's moose
(Aftenposten, 15 May 2008) -- Already chased by hunters and often run down by cars and trains, the popular Norwegian moose now faces another threat: Global warming. Researchers claim the moose population is threatened by higher temperatures in the spring and early summer that can upset their food supplies. "We're not in any doubt," Bernt Erik Sæther of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim told newspaper Aftenposten. "The moose is extremely vulnerable to climate changes. An especially warm spring and early summer can have immediate consequences on the mooses' reproductive abilities." That's because warmer temperatures will lead to earlier sprouting of the greenery on which moose calves feed. If it sprouts early, it may be too dry and fibrous by June, when the calves are born and start to feed. That in turn will cause problems for the calves' digestive systems and leave them too thin to survive their first winter. "They body weight is like a barometer for climate change," Sæther said.
Posted 16 May 2008; 9:02:58 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Conservation and Wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Nordic Region, Norway, Research / Reports
600 million RUB for Murmansk-Kirkenes road
(Murman.ru via BarentsObserver, 14 May 2008) -- Regional authorities in Murmansk have allocated 600 million RUB (16,3 million EUR) for the upgrade of the Prirechny-Nikel road leading to the Norwegian border. The reconstruction of the road will be made over a 4-year period, Murman.ru reports. The 600 million RUB allocation is made jointly by the Murmansk regional budget and federal funding within the programme “Modernization of the Russian Transport System”.
Posted 14 May 2008; 4:07:35 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, International, Nordic Region, Northwest / Russia, Norway, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Arctic discussion in the European Parliament
(Frode Dal Fjeldavli/EU-Norway Delegation Site report, 13 May 2008) -- At a seminar in the European Parliament, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre stressed the need to focus on implementation of existing legal framework for the Arctic, rather than calling for a new legal regime. The Norwegian Government maintains that we need an Arctic legal order and Arctic policies, because we will not be able to address future challenges without a rule-based response and without concerted, effective action that builds on the best available scientific data and a responsible and precautionary approach. At a seminar organised by the ALDE-group in the European Parliament 7 May Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre stressed that there is no lack of an adequate legal order for the Arctic Ocean. "We have the overall framework—what I would call the rules of the game. In short: we are talking about the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This is the comprehensive multilateral regime that applies in the Arctic. We must remember that the Arctic is not the Antarctic. The Arctic is an ocean covered with ice. In the 1890s the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen attempted to reach the North Pole by letting his ship Fram freeze into the drifting Arctic ice cover. Now this ice is rapidly melting, opening new potential sea routes," Mr Støre said. The Foreign Minister's speech was based on the following speaking points (pdf).
Posted 14 May 2008; 4:04:27 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar Issues, Circumpolar News, Conferences, meetings, and gatherings, International, Nordic Region, Norway
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