The exas­pe­ra­ting dis­cus­sion about new regu­la­ti­ons for the eas­tern parts of the Spits­ber­gen archi­pe­la­go (Sval­bard) is con­ti­nuing. Dri­ving force behind the pro­cess is the Nor­we­gi­an direc­to­ra­te for natu­re admi­nis­tra­ti­on (DN), which belongs to the Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment in Oslo. Pre­vious pro­po­sals of a new manage­ment plan ela­bo­ra­ted by the DN have even been rejec­ted by the Sys­sel­man­nen, the hig­hest repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment in Spits­ber­gen, as too weak­ly based on argu­ments and too far going in its legal con­se­quen­ces. The revi­sed ver­si­on is soon to be sent to a public hea­ring pro­cess, but the DN has alre­a­dy pro­ven that it is not inte­res­ted in the opi­ni­on of third par­ties. Obser­vers say that DN is for­cing an ideo­lo­gi­cal­ly moti­va­ted legal pro­cess wit­hout a strong foun­da­ti­on that should be defi­ned as based on know­ledge. Far-rea­ching rest­ric­tions to public access to major are­as are argued to bene­fit sci­ence and the envi­ron­ment, accor­ding to the DN. Accor­ding to sci­en­tists acti­ve in the area, cur­rent traf­fic pat­terns – which are alre­a­dy strict­ly regu­la­ted – do not pose any pro­blems for sci­en­ti­fic work. And as far as the envi­ron­ment is con­cer­ned, DN admit them­sel­ves that traf­fic as it is at pre­sent and as it will be in the future does not pose any envi­ron­men­tal pro­blems that would requi­re prin­ci­pal adjus­t­ments of the cur­rent access sche­me.

The cur­rent pro­po­sal of a future manage­ment plan is based on the ver­si­on work­ed out by a working group of the Sys­sel­man­nen in late 2011, but the DN wants some of its regu­la­ti­ons shar­per. An enlar­ge­ment of a future “Lågøya bird reser­ve” which would be clo­sed for traf­fic during the bree­ding sea­son to the who­le island of Lågøya is dif­fi­cult to under­stand and exas­pe­ra­ting. But more inte­res­t­ing is the fact that the DN wants to move important admi­nis­tra­ti­ve powers from the Sys­sel­man­nen to the DN in Oslo. If the DN get as they want to, then this will include the power to “regu­la­te” traf­fic in the eas­tern natu­re reser­ves (almost all of eas­tern Sval­bard), which means the DN could in fact clo­se are­as by decre­te, wit­hout any fur­ther legal pro­cess. Addi­tio­nal­ly, the DN wants the power to deci­de on appli­ca­ti­ons for access to the “sci­en­ti­fic refe­rence are­as”. In con­trast to ear­lier pro­po­sals, the­se are­as are no lon­ger sup­po­sed to be gene­ral­ly clo­sed to all traf­fic, but open for all who have been gran­ted per­mis­si­on which ever­y­bo­dy can app­ly for – so far the theo­ry. As all rele­vant are­as can only be visi­ted with per­mis­si­on issued by the Sys­sel­man­nen any­way, the ques­ti­on for the moti­va­ti­on of the DN for this step is inte­res­t­ing. It will be safe to assu­me that the DN intends to rest­rict the per­mit­ting prac­ti­ce dra­sti­cal­ly, if the appli­ca­ti­on pro­cess goes through Oslo rather than the Sys­sel­man­nen in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, as it has been so far and would be natu­ral to con­ti­nue. Obser­vers impu­te a cer­tain degree of prac­ti­cal know­ledge of the local rea­li­ty to the Sys­sel­man­nen, some­thing that is more dif­fi­cult to belie­ve in the case of the DN in Oslo, jud­ging from their pro­po­sals.

The cur­rent pro­po­sal distin­gu­is­hes seve­ral zones for eas­tern Sval­bard:
 
Zone A: »sci­en­ti­fic refe­rence area«, which should theo­re­ti­cal­ly be open to visit after appli­ca­ti­on, but will in prac­ti­ce most likely be a no go area for mere mor­tals.
Zone B: No traf­fic during the bree­ding sea­son.
Zone C: Site-spe­ci­fic gui­de­lines will app­ly.
Zone D: Local bans on traf­fic at cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge sites, in force sin­ce 2010.
Zone E: Kong Karls Land, Kong Karls Land (alre­a­dy off limits).
Click here for a lar­ger ver­si­on of this map.

Map: Sys­sel­man­nen

So far it has been assu­med that the spe­ci­es polar bear (Ursus mari­ti­mus) has a rather recent ori­gin in the upper Plei­s­to­ce­ne, may­be 100.000 or maxi­mum 200.000 years ago. This would indi­ca­te a very clo­se rela­ti­onship to brown bears and a quick adap­ti­on to the high arc­tic envi­ron­ment.

A stu­dy recent­ly published in Sci­ence has now indi­ca­ted a much older ori­gin for the spe­ci­es. The aut­hors sug­gest an evo­lu­tio­na­ry age of appro­xi­m­ate­ly 600.000 years (con­fi­dence inter­vall 338.000 to 934.000 years, mid- to lower Plei­s­to­ce­ne). Older stu­dies are sup­po­sed to be mis­led by gene­ti­cal con­ta­mi­na­ti­on from cross-bree­ding, an error source belie­ved to be avo­ided in the new stu­dy.

Polar bears as a spe­ci­es have accor­din­gly had signi­fi­cant­ly more time to adapt from the sub-arc­tic habi­tat of brown bears to the high arc­tic. If this has any impli­ca­ti­ons for the adapt­a­ti­on time of polar bears to recent chan­ges in envi­ron­ment and cli­ma­te remains an unans­we­red ques­ti­on at the time being.

Source: Sci­ence

The oil and gas indus­try will focus rese­arch acti­vi­ties on on-shore are­as of Spits­ber­gen. Even though oil and gas pro­duc­tion is unli­kely on the islands not only for fra­gi­le legal reasons, but also due to more solid geo­lo­gi­cal cir­cum­s­tances: here it is easy to stu­dy what is hid­den under the sea flo­or fur­ther south in the Barents Sea. The so-cal­led Barents Shelf is belie­ved to have signi­fi­cant poten­ti­al for hydro­car­bon pro­duc­tion.

Main­ly of inte­rest are Tri­as­sic and Juras­sic sedi­ments that are rich in orga­nic mate­ri­al and wide­ly spread in cen­tral and sou­the­as­tern parts of Sval­bard. Equi­va­lents of the­se rocks near the Nor­we­gi­an coast have alre­a­dy tur­ned out to be pro­duc­ti­ve. Seve­ral oil com­pa­nies have alre­a­dy announ­ced their inte­rest to con­duct geo­lo­gi­cal excur­si­ons to the­se parts of Sval­bard.

Source: Net­ta­vi­sen for Geo­mil­jøet

After a dis­ap­poin­ting ear­ly sea­son, the Eas­ter weekend brought dream con­di­ti­ons in Spits­ber­gen: good ter­rain con­di­ti­ons for tours and bright suns­hi­ne. All tho­se who went out on tours by snow mobi­le, ski or dog sledge could enjoy won­derful days in a fri­end­ly win­ter arc­tic. Tra­di­tio­nal­ly, both locals and tou­rists are out in the­se days in con­sidera­ble num­bers. Nevert­hel­ess, it was a calm weekend for the emer­gen­cy ser­vices: a polar bear that was seen near Lon­gye­ar­by­en tur­ned out to be a reinde­er, and an ava­lan­che trig­ge­red by a a per­son on ski did not do any dama­ge.

Even the ice seems to come to the coasts slow­ly, both the drift in the north and east and the fast ice in the fjords, but not to the degree that is nor­mal in April. The sai­ling boat Noor­der­licht, that is usual­ly fro­zen in the ice in Tem­pel­fjord, even visi­ted Lon­gye­ar­by­en befo­re Eas­ter, but retur­ned to stay in an ice chan­nel that had been crea­ted in 7 hours work with axes and chain saws. The first visi­tors could alre­a­dy be wel­co­med on the “ship in the ice”.

The only bad news seems to be rumours about repea­ted dis­tur­ban­ce of a young polar bear fami­ly on the east coast of Spits­ber­gen by incon­side­ra­te or even reck­less snow mobi­le dri­vers. It is said that the­se are indi­vi­du­al locals from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Com­plains have been filed both by other locals and by orga­nis­ed tou­rist groups.

Nor­mal­ly in April, the sai­ling boat Noor­der­licht is fro­zen in solid ice in Tem­pel­fjord to ser­ve as a desti­na­ti­on for snows­coo­ter or dog sledge tours. This year, the “boat in the ice” is a “boat wit­hout ice”: until now, the fjords have sim­ply not fro­zen due to the lar­ge­ly unu­sual­ly mild wea­ther and the high water tem­pe­ra­tures. Befo­re Eas­tern, Noor­der­licht even left Tem­pel­fjord to visit Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The ice chart shows an unu­su­al lack of fast ice for the sea­son. Nor­mal­ly, most smal­ler fjords on the west coast and lar­ge are­as in the east are fro­zen over with solid fast ice in April. But what is “nor­mal” the­se days?

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

Long-lived envi­ron­men­tal toxins from indus­tri­al pro­ces­ses and con­ven­tio­nal agri­cul­tu­re end­an­ger spe­ci­es that are high up in the food chain, inclu­ding polar bears, ivo­ry gulls and glau­cous gulls. This is well known and a num­ber of stu­dies have been made on the phy­io­lo­gi­cal effects of the harmful sub­s­tances, which in the arc­tic are espe­ci­al­ly long-lived becau­se of the cold tem­pe­ra­tures, on the indi­vi­du­al ani­mal.

Sci­en­tists from the Nor­we­gi­an insti­tu­te for rese­arch on natu­re (NINA) have now tried to quan­ti­fy the effects on a popu­la­ti­on level. The stu­dy has been made on glau­cous gulls on Bear Island. One of the results is that glau­cous gulls with high levels of toxins have alar­ming annu­al sur­vi­val rates of only 40-50 %.

Every year, dead glau­cous gulls are found on Bear Island that have high values of rele­vant sub­s­tances in their tis­sues. Due to its posi­ti­on and local cli­ma­te, Bear Island has some of the hig­hest con­cen­tra­ti­ons of envi­ron­men­tal toxins in the who­le Arc­tic.

Source: NINA

The warm and wet win­ter wea­ther has so far gone bad­ly over the sea­son. Both tou­rists and local tou­ring enthu­si­asts are suf­fe­ring from bad ter­rain con­di­ti­ons. Seve­ral spells of tem­pe­ra­tures well abo­ve free­zing and hea­vy rain have tur­ned snow into ice. The fjords have lar­ge­ly remain­ed open, rather than free­zing over. Popu­lar desti­na­ti­ons such as Kapp Lin­né and Noor­der­licht, the “boat in the ice” which is nor­mal­ly fro­zen in fast ice in Tem­pel­fjord in mid March, can hard­ly be rea­ched. The situa­ti­on demands a lot of fle­xi­bi­li­ty from tou­rists and tour ope­ra­tors.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten (1112)

In autumn last year the poli­ce caught 11 young peo­p­le in Lon­gye­ar­by­en with drugs. 10 of them have by now been sen­ten­ced to fines or pri­son up to 60 days (part­ly sus­pen­ded). Next to owning and sel­ling amounts of up to 100 g of can­na­bis, one per­son was also char­ged for brea­ching laws regu­la­ting fire­arms becau­se of impro­per sto­rage. Two per­sons were expel­led from Spits­ber­gen for up to 4 years. The local news­pa­per Sval­bard­pos­ten found out last year (after the drug raz­zia) in an inter­net poll that 911 out of 1060 rea­ders are in favor of expel­ling drug users and dea­lers from Spits­ber­gen.

The cri­mi­na­li­ty level is com­pa­ra­tively minor and main­ly direc­ted at cove­ring own demands, but has to be seen in the con­text of a small, iso­la­ted town with many young inha­bi­tants. The can­na­bis was smug­g­led from Nor­way to Lon­gye­ar­by­en by mail.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen, Sval­bard­pos­ten (1112)

Nor­we­gi­an poli­ti­ci­ans and often also the public seem to be con­vin­ced that tou­rists and the arc­tic envi­ron­ment are two things that don’t go tog­e­ther well. Almost as a knee-jerk, the arc­tic envi­ron­ment is descri­bed as “fra­gi­le”. Based on such assump­ti­ons that are lack­ing docu­men­ta­ti­on, the admi­nis­tra­ti­on is about to intro­du­ce dra­stic steps such as clo­sing major are­as. Such steps, that don’t even aim at an envi­ron­men­tal bene­fit but are rather to estab­lish lar­ge pri­va­te play­grounds (“refe­rence are­as”) for the admin­stra­ti­on and sci­ence that the admi­nis­tra­ti­on con­siders rele­vant, are lar­ge­ly based on the “føre var” prin­sip­pet, the pre­cau­tio­na­ry prin­ci­ple. Gene­ral­ly a good thing, but less so if strai­ned bey­ond any limit to hide the lack of docu­men­ted know­ledge that should rather be the base for good admi­nis­tra­ti­on.

Such an overs­train of the “pre­cau­tio­na­ry prin­ci­ple” due to a lack of docu­men­ted know­ledge as a base for dra­stic admi­nis­tra­ti­ve steps have in recent years led to ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sal dis­cus­sions and to a decre­asing accep­tance of the admi­nis­tra­ti­on and thus to a pro­blem of legi­ti­ma­cy.

The Nor­we­gi­an Insti­tu­te for Natu­re Rese­arch (NINA) has iden­ti­fied this as a pro­blem and has now published a report based on data coll­ec­ted during 3 field sea­sons in Spits­ber­gen (2008-2010) on 30 loca­ti­ons. NINA has obser­ved tou­rist groups, con­duc­ted inter­views with tou­rists and gui­des and asses­sed the vul­nerabi­li­ty of sites in terms of vege­ta­ti­on, ani­mals, ter­rain and his­to­ri­cal sites. Accor­ding to the report, the gui­des have a key posi­ti­on to influence the beha­viour of tou­rists and their moving pat­terns. The report does not pro­vi­de a con­clu­ding ans­wer to the ques­ti­on if tou­rism is harmful to the arc­tic envi­ron­ment, but makes clear that the­re is no simp­le yes or no to this ques­ti­on, and points out the lack of available know­ledge upon which an assess­ment can be made, also as a base for admi­nis­tra­ti­ve steps.

Source: NINA

Heli­c­op­ter landings out­side the offi­ci­al air­fields are prin­ci­pal­ly not allo­wed and can only be car­ri­ed out with spe­cial per­mis­si­on from the Sys­sel­man­nen. Now figu­res have been published to illus­tra­te heli­c­op­ter landings in the field in 2011: the total num­ber was no less than 2403. Out of the­se, 1729 were con­nec­ted to mining and mine­ral explo­ra­ti­on, 335 were in the con­text of sci­ence. Admi­nis­tra­ti­ve heli­c­op­ter use, which can safe­ly be assu­med to be sub­stan­ti­al, is not included.

Per­mis­si­ons for tou­ristic heli­c­op­ter use are prin­ci­pal­ly not given.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen

In August 2011, a 17 year old stu­dent was kil­led and 4 other ones inju­red when a very aggres­si­ve polar bear atta­cked their camp (see ear­lier artic­les on the­se pages). The Sys­sel­man­nen has now deci­ded to clo­se the case. Accor­ding to Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties, the cau­se for the tra­gic event was “a num­ber of unfort­u­na­te cir­cum­s­tances that led to the tra­gic acci­dent”, but not invol­ving any cri­mi­nal offence. The case will accor­din­gly be clo­sed.

The par­ents do not agree with the Sysselmannen’s decis­i­on to clo­se the case and have filed a com­plaint to The public pro­se­cu­tors’ office of Troms and Finn­mark.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen