In the course of 2008, the Murmansk Regional Ministry for Recourses and Ecology gave 163 permissions to emissions of dangerous pollutants into the air.

In order to strengthen its presence on the archipelago Svalbard, Russia plans to open a scientific station in the old mining village of Pyramiden.

-Climate change will be the biggest challenge for the Barents Region, the Norwegian Deputy Minister of Environment said when meeting with a Russian counterpart this week. The two countries now establish a joint working group on climate issues.

The amount of sea ice in the Arctic has never been lower than in 2008, according to UN organization WMO. One of the consequences from global warming is more extreme weather.

The nature reserve around the Bear Island in the Barents Sea will be expanded. This is a measure to help preserve the environment in the Barents Sea and around Svalbard, the Norwegian government says.

Svalbard is given a key role in EU’s new Arctic research agreement. This will bring more money and new projects on climate research to Svalbard.

In course of the last eight years 73 rockets have been launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Arkhangelsk Oblast. Arkhangelsk Oblast does not receive any compensation for the damages brought on the environment from the activity and claims that the Ministry of Defence neglects to fulfil concluded agreements.

The adoption of proposed amendments to the federal Law on protected nature territories could jeopardize the environment of the vulnerable Khibiny mountains in the Kola Peninsula, regional environmentalists say.

The Norwegian-Russian project on replacing radioactive strontium batteries with solar panels in lighthouses along the White Sea and Barents Sea coast and islands is now completed. In 2009 the project might be adopted in the Baltic Sea.

The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources believes a new National Council should be established in order to meet the growing environmental challenges in the Russian Arctic.

A new National Knowledge Centre for sustainable Arctic transport and logistics is launched in Kirkenes on Wednesday.

A battle over the resource management of the Norwegian Sea is on the agenda this weekend. The Norwegian Ministry of Environment is about to present a new management plan for the area, which will outline regulations for fisheries, petroleum, ship traffic and energy.

The Russian nuclear industry sees the Arctic shelf as its new growth market. It now suggests the construction of nuclear-powered underwater drilling ships, as well as using nuclear-powered icebreakers and floating nuclear power plants in the development of offshore hydrocarbon projects.

Barrack Obama’s victory in the U.S. presidential elections could make it harder for Norway to develop oil and gas fields in the High North, a Norwegian researcher says.

In the course of summer, Russia removed another 46 strontium-fuelled lighthouses from the coast of the White Sea and the Barents and Kara Seas. With Norwegian project support, Russia has now removed 180 radioactive lighthouses between Murmansk and the Novaya Zemlya and replaced them with solar cell installations.

Russia is well underway to improve the situation in the Andreeva Bay, an official from Rosatom confirmed in a seminar yesterday. Sweden, Norway and the UK pledge continued support to the clean-up of the site, one of the world’s biggest and worst protected storages for spent nuclear fuel.

The EU hopes to see Russia teaming up with the Union in climate issues ahead of upcoming international climate negotiations. This week, a delegation from the EU Parliament’s Climate Change Committee visited Moscow.

This weekend beat the October temperature record in Murmansk. Never before on record, the temperature in the city has been nine degrees centigrade.

More than 260,000 litres of diesel oil this week spilled in to the sea in the small town of Batsfjord on the Barents Sea coast.

– The government of Murmansk Oblast fully supports the development of renewable energy. We are ready to help with land acquisitions and tax benefits, said today a representative of the regional Ministry of Industry, Transport and Energy.