The Norwegian Sea is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to the northeast. In the southwest, it is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a submarine ridge running between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. To the north, the Jan Mayen Ridge separates it from the Greenland Sea.
The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada, Danish Realm (Greenland), northern Finland, Iceland, northern Norway, Russia, northernmost Sweden and the United States (Alaska). Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost under the tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places.
The University of Akureyri was founded in 1987 in the town of Akureyri in the northeastern part of Iceland. It is today a school of health sciences, humanities and social science, and a school of business and science. Over 2000 students attended the university in the autumn semester of 2014, around half of them through flexible learning, making the university the largest provider of distance education in the country. The University of Akureyri coordinates with other Icelandic Universities to operate the University Centre of the Westfjords located in Ísafjörður, which operates two master's degrees, one in Coastal and Marine Management and the other in Marine Innovation. Additionally, The University of Akureyri coordinates with other Nordic Universities for the West Nordic Studies and Polar Law Masters programs.
Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally, resulting in the species becoming increasingly underpopulated in that area. Overfishing can occur in water bodies of any sizes, such as ponds, wetlands, rivers, lakes or oceans, and can result in resource depletion, reduced biological growth rates and low biomass levels. Sustained overfishing can lead to critical depensation, where the fish population is no longer able to sustain itself. Some forms of overfishing, such as the overfishing of sharks, has led to the upset of entire marine ecosystems. Types of overfishing include: growth overfishing, recruitment overfishing, ecosystem overfishing.
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including recreational, subsistence and commercial fishing, as well as the related harvesting, processing, and marketing sectors. The commercial activity is aimed at the delivery of fish and other seafood products for human consumption or as input factors in other industrial processes. The livelihood of over 500 million people in developing countries depends directly or indirectly on fisheries and aquaculture.
The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses issues faced by the Arctic governments and the indigenous people of the Arctic. At present, eight countries exercise sovereignty over the lands within the Arctic Circle, and these constitute the member states of the council: Canada; Denmark; Finland; Iceland; Norway; Russia; Sweden; and the United States. Other countries or national groups can be admitted as observer states, while organizations representing the concerns of indigenous peoples can be admitted as indigenous permanent participants.
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is an issue around the world. Fishing industry observers believe IUU occurs in most fisheries, and accounts for up to 30% of total catches in some important fisheries.
The Greenland halibut or Greenland turbot belongs to the family Pleuronectidae, and is the only species of the genus Reinhardtius. It is a predatory fish that mostly ranges at depths between 500 and 1,000 m (1,600–3,300 ft), and is found in the cold northern Atlantic, northern Pacific, and Arctic Oceans.
The Arctic consists of land, internal waters, territorial seas, exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and international waters above the Arctic Circle. All land, internal waters, territorial seas and EEZs in the Arctic are under the jurisdiction of one of the eight Arctic coastal states: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. International law regulates this area as with other portions of Earth.
The Ilulissat Declaration is a document signifying necessary joint regional efforts and responsibilities in response to the potentially adverse effects of climate change with regard to the melting Arctic ice pack.
The inaugural Arctic Ocean Conference was held in Ilulissat (Greenland) on 27-29 May 2008. Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States discussed key issues relating to the Arctic Ocean. The meeting was significant because of its plans for environmental regulation, maritime security, mineral exploration, polar oil oversight, and transportation. Before the conclusion of the conference, the attendees announced the Ilulissat Declaration.
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately 14,060,000 km2 (5,430,000 sq mi) and is known as one of the coldest of oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea. It has also been described as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean.
Cod fisheries are fisheries for cod. Cod is the common name for fish of the genus Gadus, belonging to the family Gadidae, and this article is confined to three species that belong to this genus: the Atlantic cod, the Pacific cod and the Greenland cod. Although there is a fourth species of the cod genus Gadus, Alaska pollock, it is commonly not called cod and therefore currently not covered here.
Arctic cooperation and politics are partially coordinated via the Arctic Council, composed of the eight Arctic nations: the United States, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Denmark with Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The dominant governmental power in Arctic policy resides within the executive offices, legislative bodies, and implementing agencies of the eight Arctic nations, and to a lesser extent other nations, such as United Kingdom, Germany, European Union and China. NGOs and academia play a large part in Arctic policy. Also important are intergovernmental bodies such as the United Nations and NATO.
The Arctic policy of the United States is the foreign policy of the United States in regard to the Arctic region. In addition, the United States' domestic policy toward Alaska is part of its Arctic policy.
Ocean governance is the conduct of the policy, actions and affairs regarding the world's oceans. Within governance, it incorporates the influence of non-state actors, i.e. stakeholders, NGOs and so forth, therefore the state is not the only acting power in policy making. However, ocean governance is complex because much of the ocean is a commons that is not ‘owned’ by any single person or nation/state. There is a belief more strongly in the US than other countries that the “invisible hand” is the best method to determine ocean governance factors. These include factors such as what resources we consume, what price we should pay for them, and how we should use them. The underlying reasoning behind this is the market has to have the desire in order to promote environmental protection, however this is rarely the case. This term is referred to as a market failure. Market failures and government failures are the leading causes of ocean governance complications. As a result, humankind has tended to overexploit marine resources, by treating them as shared resources while not taking equal and collective responsibilities in caring for them.
The Arctic Policy of the Kingdom of Denmark defines the Kingdom's foreign relations and policies with other Arctic countries, and the Kingdom's strategy for the Arctic on issues occurring within the geographic boundaries of "the Arctic" or related to the Arctic or its peoples. In order to clearly understand the Danish geopolitical importance of the Arctic, it is necessary to mention Denmark's territorial claims in areas beyond its exclusive EEZ in areas around the Faroe Islands and north of Greenland covering parts of the North Pole, which is also claimed by Russia.
Climate change in Greenland is affecting the livelihood of the Greenlandic population. Geographically Greenland is situated between the Arctic and the Atlantic Ocean, with two thirds of the island being north of the Arctic Circle. Since the middle of the 20th century, the Arctic has been warming at about twice the global rate. Rising temperatures put increasing pressure on certain plant and tree species and contribute to Greenland's melting ice sheet. This affects and changes the livelihood of the Greenlandic population, particularly the Greenlandic Inuit, which make up to 80 percent of the total population. Besides the decline of fish stocks, the country's landscape is changing: the melting ice reveals minerals, oil and gas. This has attracted interest from local and foreign investors for potential resource extraction. As new industries are accompanied by new job opportunities and potential wealth, lifestyles are changing. Greenland is in transition, in terms of biophysical as well as cultural and social conditions.
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) in the Arctic is an under researched scientific field. The most recent academic articles about IUU in the Arctic mainly concerns the mid-2000s.
Arctic geopolitics is the area study of geopolitics on the Arctic region. The study of geopolitics deals with the "inalienable relationship between geography and politics", as it investigates the effects of the Earth's geography on politics and international relations. Arctic geopolitics focuses on the inter-state relations in the Arctic, which is the northernmost polar region. It is composed of the Arctic Ocean and its adjacent seas, and is home to around four million people. The states in or bordering the Arctic are commonly referred to as the Arctic Eight, and are the United States, Canada, Russia, Finland, the Kingdom of Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Iceland and Sweden.
