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April
1, 2005
Seal hunt starts in
Norway
Norway's seal hunt is underway, with the first foreigners arriving in the coastal
community of Vega to take part in the hunt.
Local supporters of the hunt, who hoped the hunt would attract tourist money,
are disappointed because only about 18 foreign seal hunters have signed on.
Maritime authorities in Norway gave a green light to the seal hunt at the end
of January, despite a massive international protest.
"The biggest response has come from the media," seal hunter and outfitter
Roger Eidem told the national Norwegian broadcasting company earlier this week.
"The Norwegian seal hunt has received as much attention as a state coup
would. The worst is that it's being portrayed as barbarian, especially in the
foreign press. It's been said we beat the animals with picks that were used
in the old days, and that we kill newborn seals."
Greenpeace had threatened to mount protests over this year's seal hunt, but
in Vega they've seen no signs from Greenpeace yet.
April
1, 2005
Arctic expeditions
stranded in Russia
The Aftenposten newspaper
says a power-play among Russian bureaucrats has stranded three expeditions that
planned to trek over the North Pole this spring.
Liv Arnesen of Norway and
her partner Ann Bancroft of the United States are among those stuck in the Siberian
town of Khatanga.
Bancroft and Arnesen want
to ski and ski-sail over the frozen Arctic Ocean and around the North Pole.
But Arnesen told the Aftenposten
newspaper that she and Bancroft have become pawns "in a bigger game"
that involves powerful players in Moscow who are vying to control tourism in
parts of the Arctic.
The Norwegian Embassy in
Moscow has tried to intervene, and Russian authorities issued all the papers
and permits needed to make the part of the polar expedition that goes over Russian
territory.
But in mid-March, Russian
soldiers carrying Kalishnikov weapons surrounded the two helicopters Arnesen
and Bancroft planned to use to fly to their starting point of Cape Arktichesky.
The soldiers showed up,
Arnesen said, after they had loaded their equipment into the helicopters.
"Military authorities
in Murmansk have, after orders from someone in Moscow, called the airport and
given orders that we can't fly north," said Arnesen.
Arnesen said the 2,750-kilometer
expedition around the North Pole to Ward Hunt Island should have started by
February 25.
They need to reach the
North Pole by the end of April to get back over the ice to Canada.
Two other expeditions are
also stuck in Khatanga, one involving a British woman going solo and another
with adventurers from the Netherlands, the U.S. and Norway.
April
1, 2005
Canada's melting glaciers
raising sea levels
Recent research conducted
by NASA scientists says Canada's ice caps and glaciers have a large influence
on Earth's changing climate and are already causing the global sea level to
rise.
Canada's Arctic is covered
by approximately 150,000 square kilometers of ice. While this land area is tiny
compared to Antarctica's 113.5 million square kilometers, and Greenland's 1.7
million square kilometers of ice coverage, it is still quite significant, says
NASA.
Waleed Abdalati, head of
the Cryospheric Sciences Branch at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center published
research recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research showing that Canada's
Arctic ice is already one of the most important sources of global changes in
sea levels.
Abdalati and his colleagues
say Canada's Arctic ice is important because the huge area covered by these
ice caps and the dramatic changes that have taken place in the Arctic climate
in recent years.
Over the next century,
melting glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica are expected
to raise global sea levels by 20 to 40 centimeters.
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