Lar­ge crui­se ships in Spits­ber­gen: soon histo­ry?

Cru­de oil has been ban­ned from the natu­re reser­ves in the eas­tern part of the Spits­ber­gen archi­pe­la­go alrea­dy in 2007, and the same legis­la­ti­on has been intro­du­ced to the natio­nal parks, covering lar­ge parts of the west coast, in 2009 (exclu­ding, for some years, a rou­te into Mag­da­le­n­efjord, a popu­lar desti­na­ti­on for lar­ge crui­se ships). Cru­de oil is a com­mon fuel type for lar­ger ships.

It is now con­si­de­red to ban cru­de oil from all Spits­ber­gen waters, only exclu­ding ack­now­led­ged ship­ping rou­tes to Lon­gye­ar­by­en and the mining sett­le­ment of Sveagru­va. This is to pre­vent cata­stro­phic oil spills in case of ship­ping desas­ters.

This would fac­tual­ly be the end of over­sea crui­se ship visits to Spits­ber­gen or at least a drastic reduc­tion. From an envi­ron­men­tal per­spec­ti­ve, a ban on cru­de oil in arc­tic waters would be very wel­co­me.

41.387 visi­tors came to Spits­ber­gen on ships, by far most of them on lar­ge crui­se ships. Some more are expec­ted in 2010.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten (19/10)

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