The ongo­ing dis­cus­sion con­cer­ning pos­si­ble clo­sure of most of eas­tern Sval­bard has been repor­ted repea­ted­ly on the­se pages (see for exam­p­le Decem­ber 2008). After a public hea­ring peri­od in late 2008, the Sys­sel­man­nen gave a nega­ti­ve vote to the strong rest­ric­tions that had been pro­po­sed by DN (Nor­we­gi­an direc­to­ra­te for natu­re admi­nis­tra­ti­on). Fol­lo­wing the mot­to “we vote until we get the result that we want”, DN puts the same pro­po­sal for­ward again for ano­ther public hea­ring peri­od. Opi­ni­ons can be sent to the Sys­sel­man­nen (cont­act the Sys­sel­man­nen) until 01 Sep­tem­ber 2009. A new Sys­sel­man­nen will ascend the “thro­ne” in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in Sep­tem­ber 2009. Evil to him who evil thinks…

Accor­ding to DN’s pro­po­sal, landings in the lar­ge natu­re reser­ves in eas­tern Sval­bard can only be made at 16 dedi­ca­ted locations/smaller are­as, effec­tively clo­sing many hundred kilo­me­t­res of coast­li­ne and thus some­thing like 40 % of the archi­pe­la­go to the inte­res­ted public.

Today, tou­rists can access most of the area in ques­ti­on with very few excep­ti­ons (Kong Karls Land). During a con­fe­rence orga­ni­zed by AECO in Lon­gye­ar­by­en in Octo­ber 2008, lea­ding Nor­we­gi­an sci­en­tists expres­sed that they did not con­sider tou­rism to pre­sent any serious envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns or con­flicts with sci­en­ti­fic work, not exclu­ding the need for recom­men­da­ti­ons or stric­ter regu­la­ti­ons when it comes, for exam­p­le, to indi­vi­du­al sites.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

…or, rather: they ARE expen­si­ve, but in the future you are more likely to pay yours­elf. So far, the­re have alre­a­dy been 52 heli­c­op­ter SAR ope­ra­ti­ons, com­pared to a total of 72 in 2008 and 60 in 2007, a signi­fi­cant increase. The most spec­ta­cu­lar case was a long-distance heli­c­op­ter flight from Spits­ber­gen to nor­t­her­most Green­land and back to evacua­te a Dane with acu­te health pro­blems. In a lar­ge num­ber of cases, snow-mobi­le or ski tou­rists have been evacua­ted in Spits­ber­gen, when frost or bad wea­ther star­ted to take a toll. The Sys­sel­man­nen sees an increased rea­di­ness to use the satel­li­te pho­ne or emer­gen­cy loca­tor bea­con. Adi­tio­nal­ly, too many tou­rists (inclu­ding locals) seem not to be well enough pre­pared with equip­ment ade­qua­te for all pos­si­ble high arc­tic con­di­ti­ons and wil­ling­ness to spend a cou­ple of days in a self-built snow cave, a com­mon and usual­ly safe method to sus­tain during extre­me wea­ther con­di­ti­ons seems to decrease.

The Sys­sel­man­nen con­siders to use the “pol­lu­ter pays prin­ci­ple” in the future.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

Cap­tain and first offi­cer of the Rus­si­an free­zing ship Petro­za­vodsk, groun­ded 11 May near the sou­thern tip of Bjørnøya, have been sen­ten­ced by the North-Nor­we­gi­an “tin­g­rett” to 15 respec­tively 40 days in pri­son. They have been accu­sed of being under influence of alco­hol. The offi­cer has addi­tio­nal­ly been accu­sed for having cau­sed the groun­ding by fal­ling asleep while on duty and ente­ring the pro­tec­ted zone near the sou­thern coast of Bjørnøya, which must not be ente­red bet­ween 15 May and 31 August by ves­sels lar­ger than 40 feet.

The Cap­tain was sent back home to Rus­sia after the sen­tence had been pas­sed, as both had alre­a­dy spent 15 days under arrest. 

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen