An inte­res­t­ing artic­le about polar bears in the light of cli­ma­te chan­ge has been published by the Rus­si­an Aca­de­my of Sci­ence. Click here to read the artic­le.

The new Liby­an govern­ment has announ­ced a flight to the north pole tog­e­ther with repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of NATO mem­ber sta­tes that took part in the 2011 mili­ta­ry cam­paign. The flight aims at an increase of the fee­ling for tog­e­ther­ness within the Liby­an socie­ty and a posi­ti­ve recep­ti­on in the world public.

The Sys­sel­man­nen has, howe­ver, denied per­mis­si­on for a fuel stop in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The orga­ni­zers of the flight said they were dis­ap­poin­ted and would try to take the issue up to a poli­ti­cal level.

Parts of Spits­ber­gen may be added to the world heri­ta­ge site list of the UNESCO. In 2012, a working group of the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment will start to com­pi­le an appli­ca­ti­on that can be sub­mit­ted to the UNESCO at a later stage.

Until now the geo­de­tic sta­ti­on in Ny Åle­sund is situa­ted near the air­field, about 1 km from the vil­la­ge. The Nor­we­gi­an topo­gra­phic agen­cy that is run­ning the sta­ti­on intends to build a new sta­ti­on near the coast at Bran­dals­pyn­ten, a pen­in­su­la not far from Ny Åle­sund. This is con­tro­ver­si­al becau­se the­re is a gene­ral con­sen­sus that the envi­ron­ment near Ny Åle­sund is to be kept in a natu­ral con­di­ti­on as much as pos­si­ble, to pre­ser­ve the eco­lo­gi­cal and sci­en­ti­fic values. The Nor­we­gi­an minis­try for the envi­ron­ment has now announ­ced that per­mis­si­on will be given to build the new sta­ti­on.

It is expec­ted that 5 years will be nee­ded to build the new sta­ti­on and both sta­ti­ons will run par­al­lel for 3 years to syn­chro­ni­ze the data.

Source: Nor­we­gi­sches Umwelt­mi­nis­te­ri­um

The working group of the Sys­sel­man­nen has pro­du­ced a map as a base for the ongo­ing dis­cus­sion about a manage­ment plan for east Sval­bard. The cur­rent pro­po­sal will be for­ward­ed to the Nor­we­gi­an direc­to­ra­te for natu­re admi­nis­tra­ti­on in Janu­ary 2012. Later, it will go through ano­ther public hea­ring. The map below is the basis for the cur­rent pro­po­sal.

The cur­rent pro­po­sal distin­gu­is­hes seve­ral zones for eas­tern Sval­bard:
 
Zone A: »sci­en­ti­fic refe­rence area«, which will most likely be a no go area for ever­y­bo­dy except a few sci­en­tists sel­ec­ted by the admi­nis­tra­ti­on.
Zone B: No traf­fic during the bree­ding sea­son.
Zone C: spe­ci­fic site-spe­ci­fic gui­de­lines
Zone D: local bans on traf­fic at cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge sites, in force sin­ce 2010
Zone E: Kong Karls Land (alre­a­dy off limits)
 
Map: Sys­sel­man­nen

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen