Management plan for the national parks in Spitsbergen
The management plan for Sør-Spitsbergen National Park, Forlandet National Park, Nordvest-Spitsbergen National Park and bird reserves with proposals for regulatory changes are sent to the Norwegian Environment Agency for final approval.
The management plan and proposed changes to the regulations were presented for consultation in the autumn of 2016. There were 12 contributions during the consultation. As a result of the contributions, some minor changes have been made to the management plan and proposals for regulatory changes. Among other things, The Governor of Svalbard recommends that Hesteskoholmene is left out of the proposed Liefdefjorden bird reserve.
A ban on motorised traffic was proposed in all bird reserves. In the proposal that has now been submitted, we propose that an exception from the motorised traffic ban be made in Kapp Linné bird reserve in light of the tourism activity at Isfjord Radio.
The consultation contributions, The Governor of Svalbard’s proposals for regulatory changes and the management plan submitted to the Norwegian Environment Agency can be found as attachments on the left.
The proposals for changes to the protection regulations also include three minor changes for Nordaust-Svalbard Nature Reserve and Søraust-Svalbard Nature Reserve. These apply to the provision on protection against interference (section 23), the authority of The Governor of Svalbard to lay down separate provisions on the cleaning of footwear and equipment to prevent the spread of new plant species (section 26), and an adjustment to the wording in the provision on prohibiting the acquisition of mining rights (section 27). The background for this is that the regulations on these points should be the same for all the large protected areas covered by this protection regulation.
The process from here will be that the Norwegian Environment Agency approves the management plan. Changes in the protection regulations must be determined by royal decree. It is expected that it will be decided that the new regulatory changes will come into force from January 2020.