A disaster waiting to happen: oil spills in Norway’s Arctic waters

Concerns about high oil prices and instability in the Middle East have meant that the Arctic — home to a quarter of planet’s untapped oil and natural gas — has become one of the final frontiers for natural resource exploration and exploitation. In 2004, some 12 million tons of oil were shipped from northwest Russia through the Arctic waters of the Barents Sea and down towards Europe following the Norwegian coastline. Such cargo is expected to nearly double this year, and by 2010 it could be as much as 200 million tons.

“Several years ago you would hardly see a Russian tanker passing our coast,” recalls Ole Berglund, a fisherman from Norway’s Lofoten Islands, an archipelago of remote islands north of the Arctic Circle. “Now you can spot them daily, heading to markets in Europe and North America.”

..The Barents Sea is among the cleanest and most undisturbed oceans in the world. It has a high density of seabirds, some of the world’s richest fisheries, and a diverse community of marine mammals.

The Lofoten Islands, in particular, are surrounded by waters that are home to the world’s largest cod and herring stocks, as well as pods of sperm and killer whales, puffins and cormorants. It is also an area where the largest cold-water coral reef was recently discovered. Running over 40km long and 2–3km wide, the fragile and slow-growing Rost Reef is currently protected under Norwegian law from fishing activities.

An oil spill, whether from a blow-out, pipeline leak or shipping accident, could not only severely damage the reef and surrounding environment for years to come, but would also ruin the local economy, built on tourism and fishing.

WWF