The authors of the idea of making all of Svalbard (Spitsbergen) a national park – an idea which we encourage you to support -- consider that if their idea is implemented, two spheres will benefit: scientific research and tourism. The information below concerns two new projects now in the planning stages. The first project would organize ecological monitoring systems on the basis of comprehensive long-term findings of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Spitsbergen Geo-Ecological Expedition. This project was first proposed by an initiative group from the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences in October 1997, in Murmansk, at an international conference on Ecological Monitoring of the Seas of the West Arctic.

The second project would turn the Russian mining settlement of Piramida into a center for eco-tourism and scientific research. This project was proposed by the German entrepreneur Andreas Umbreit in November 1998, in Arkhangelsk, at a seminar organized by the WWF Arctic Program on Tourism and Environmental Protection in the Russian Arctic.

ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH IN WESTERN SPITSBERGEN AS A STARTING POINT FOR ECOLOGICAL MONITORING OF ARCTIC ISLAND ECOSYSTEMS

The Spitsbergen Geo-Ecological Expedition (of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geography) conducted research over two decades (1977-1996). The geographical research involved most of the western coast of Spitsbergen, including inland areas of the Kongs-fjord and Ice-fjord, Belsunn and Hornsunn. Comprehensive ecosystem research was carried out in all sorts of island biocenoses: from ornithogenic meadows to pioneer polar deserts and Arctic tundra, including their anthropogenic variants. Fundamental research was conducted on vegetation as the biota’s main environment-forming component. Floristic work revealed the composition, structure and dynamic of local flora. Particular attention was paid to the role of alien species. The flora of the Ice-fiord proved to contain fourteen mainland species, which appeared and were naturalized in the last century.

Investigation of the spatial laws of natural and anthropogenic successions in Spitsbergen’s Arctic tundra produced substantial results. These laws provided the basis for recommendations concerning ecological restoration. A series of experiments worked to restore vegetation that had been destroyed by transport in the Kolsbei settlement and on the slag dumps of stripped rock at the Barentsburg mine. A detailed inventory was made of soil algoflora as well as of the species composition of lichens and mosses. The fundamental laws of soil-forming processes were deduced. Zoological research concentrated on two model groups: soil mesofauna and birds. Both systematic groups are extremely important biocenotically in tundra island ecosystems and, furthermore, represent a convenient tool for conducting general monitoring. The spatial distribution of nesting colonies of sea birds and birds belonging to terrestrial ecosystems was studied in the Belsunn fjord where, in 1991, scientists found previously undiscovered colonies of significance (given the area occupied and number of birds). The large colonies found in such well-studied places as western Spitsbergen point once again to the need for a detailed inventory as the basis for the “zero cycle” of an ecological monitoring system.

In western Spitsbergen this stage is all but finished. A detailed inventory of common model groups with specific spatial ties has been done as well as a study of the successive change of ecosystems and successive status of biocenotically important groups. In 1996, a laboratory group conducted research on the anthropogenic pollution of different ecosystem compounds.

The current situation in and research status of western Spitsbergen ecosystems, conceptual and methodological work, and the increasing anthropogenic pressure in the Barents Sea all suggest the necessity and good prospects for this region’s use as a model territory for an ecological monitoring system.

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