The Norwegian ecosystem-based management plan for the Barents Sea

In April 2006, the Norwegian government launched a White Paper on a new holistic management plan for the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea, including the fishery protection zone around Svalbard. Following international guidelines for ecosystem-based management, the plan provides an overall framework for managing all human activities (oil and gas industry, fishing, and shipping) in the area to ensure the continued health, production, and function of the Barents Sea ecosystem. The primary function of area-based management is the identification of areas of special importance from either ecological or human perspectives. In each area, access for different human activities is to be carefully managed. The plan is based on an assessment of the current and anticipated impact of human activities and of the interactions between them, taking into account deficits in current knowledge of ecosystem state and dynamics. To monitor the overall development of the Barents Sea's state of health, a set of indicators with associated environmental quality objectives has been developed.