The sea is a source of great income and value for Norway, and at the same time home to vulnerable ecosystems and large carbon stores. Every four years, the government must present a plan for how marine areas are to be managed, and how business, nature and climate are to be balanced. The recent report from the Professional Forum for Norwegian Sea Areas is the factual basis for the government’s plans for the next few years. The forum consists of a large number of expert groups, including the Norwegian Environment Agency and the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. This time there was one important topic on which the experts did not agree. Members of the Academic Forum The Bjerknes Center for Climate Research The Norwegian Directorate of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety The Directorate of Fisheries The Marine Research Institute The Mapping Authority The Coastal Agency The Meteorological Institute The Norwegian Geological Survey The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate The Norwegian Institute for Air Research The Norwegian Institute for Natural Research The Norwegian Institute for Water Research The Norwegian Polar Institute The Petroleum Directorate The Petroleum Safety Authority The Norwegian Maritime Directorate The Academic Forum has asked marine scientists to identify new “Vulnerable and important areas”, known as SVOs. Just over 70 researchers have been involved in the work. The SVO stamp is important when assessing whether an area can be used for, for example, fishing, oil extraction or offshore wind, even if it does not set any legal stops. – In general, caution should be exercised because these are very important areas for biological diversity, says Cecilie Kristiansen, head of the Professional Forum. The Barents Sea may become somewhat less important for seabird populations in the North Atlantic, such as the puffin. Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB The researchers believe that a number of new areas should be marked as particularly vulnerable: The sea areas in the area around Svalbard The Arctic Circle The central Barents Sea Mid-Atlantic ridge The deep sea areas in the Norwegian Sea Norskerenna After long discussions, most of the members of the Academic Forum were able to support the list, as well as changes in existing SVOs. The exceptions are the Directorate of Fisheries and the Directorate of Petroleum, which believe that more discussions are needed about the knowledge base. Disagree The report states that the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate supports most of the proposed SVOs. But for some of the areas, they believe that they do not have enough knowledge to say that the area should be marked as particularly valuable and vulnerable. But will be able to increase for loons and polar loons, according to the report to Faglig forum. Photo: NTB – In what way is the knowledge base not good enough? – How missing data and data with lower confidence, as well as vulnerability, should be handled in some of the area proposals has not yet been assessed by the researchers, and since these are areas where there will not be extensive activity within the upcoming four-year management plan period, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate is therefore requesting more information before these possibly is proposed as SVO, says director of communications Ola Anders Skauby in the Norwegian Directorate of Natural Resources and Environment. – The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate believes that the SVO concept is important and an essential part of marine management. At the same time, we are concerned that the SVO term is not diluted or misused. That is precisely why we want sufficient knowledge to be able to clearly define the SVOs, he adds. – A problem That the academic basis is not good enough, senior researcher Gro van der Meeren at the Institute of Marine Research completely disagrees with: – We believe that we have delivered a very thoroughly carried out work, where we have even used researchers who have not been involved to investigate, to check that it is good work. We stand for each and every one of the 19 areas, says van der Meeren. Since the vulnerable and valuable areas were identified for the first time, a lot of new knowledge and understanding of ecological processes has come, she explains. The coastal zone is exposed to great pressure, according to the Professional Forum, and opportunities for hunting and commercial fishing will deteriorate. Photo: Berit Roald / NTB Van der Meeren believes that the Professional Forum has always had a problem with people not agreeing on what an SVO actually is. – The managers see SVO as a management tool, which means that they must have special permission, extra investigations, good documentation that they do no harm when they use those areas, she says. Will highlight the disagreement Academic forum leader Kristiansen also says that the researchers have gone through the environmental values thoroughly, such as seabirds and plankton in the ocean areas. – We see that the researchers have had a comprehensive review. They use new knowledge from the various monitoring programs and have proposed the new areas, both completely new and some changed areas, says Kristiansen. A poorer nutritional base for marine mammals such as beluga whales, bowhead whales and beluga whales will lead to changes in their core habitats. Photo: Itsuo Inouye / Ap – We try to get consensus and we work a lot on that. Through the mandate, we have been given the opportunity that if no agreement can be reached, we can highlight the disagreement. We have done that in this report, she adds. Climate change in all sea areas The entire 200-page report will be used in the government’s work to update the management plans for the three Norwegian sea areas Barents Sea-Lofoten, Norwegian Sea and North Sea-Skagerrak. Among other things, the report states that in all three sea areas it has generally become warmer in the last 40 years, and this is clearly linked to man-made climate change.
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Scientists will mark new Norwegian sea areas as vulnerable – news – Klima
