The directorate wants Jan Mayen to remain an isolated and untouched Arctic island. The reserve should also include the surrounding waters and the sea bottom, the directorate maintains in a press release.
The 373 square kilometre big island has glaciers and volcanoes. It lies 600 km north of Iceland and 500 km east of central Greenland
The Norwegian directorate wants to turn the whole island into a nature reserve, except two minor areas where an existing meteorological station and a navigation installations are located.
The proposal will now be assessed by the Ministry of Environment.
Further east in the Barents Sea, Russian authorities plan to establish a major nature reserve including both the northern parts of Novaya Zemlya and the Franz Josef Land.
