Cold War legacies in Russia’s Svalbard policy - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 26

be excluded from the regime established by the Svalbard Treaty' . 6 I n Russia's
view, the proposed provisions would obstruct further mining on the archi-
pelago just as the Svalbard Environmental Protection Act the previous year
had introduced formal hindrances to new mines. The Act had imposed restric-
tions that would make it more difficult to establish new industrial activity
on Svalbard if it affected the environment. Some asserted that the strict
Norwegian rules aimed at preserving 'a virtually untouched environment on
Svalbard ' 7 favoured the differentiated Norwegian activity on the archipelago
and disfavoured present and future Russian mining activity (e.g. Charodeev
2001:7; Gundarov 2002a:24).
Thus, the Svalbard Environmental Protection Act and its pursuant pro-
visions were perceived in Russia as threats to the only remaining Russian
community on Svalbard. Just like coal mining operations had long been
the backbone of the Norwegian settlements on the Arctic outpost, Russia's
presence there was also based on coal mining. Russia's physical presence on
Svalbard enabled the country to maintain its allegedly 'privileged' position
among the contracting parties to the Svalbard Treaty (Moe 1983:42), and to
closely monitor Norway's activities on the archipelago. If the mineral reserves
were exhausted, large settlements could no longer be sustained.
The public debate in Russia, as well as the diplomatic and political
responses to the Norwegian legislation, suggest that Norway's environmen-
tal protection measures on Svalbard in the early 2000s were seen in Russia
as a security issue. The Svalbard Environmental Protection Act and its pur-
suant provisions could affect the future of the Barentsburg settlement and
ultimately Russia's ability to monitor Norway's activities on the archipelago.
Some saw the Act and its provisions as part of Norway's security policy, alleg-
edly aimed at ousting Russia from Svalbard. The Russians regarded Norway's
environmental legislation as a disguised political instrument, aimed at forc-
ing Russia to leave the archipelago (Jørgensen 2004:184-5).
In a study of Russian perceptions of Norwegian Svalbard policies by
Jørgen Holten Jørgensen (2004), several Russian respondents expressed
the view that Norway's motives were different from those it had publicly
declared. In a 2001 report from the semi-governmental Russian Council
on Defence and Foreign Policy (SVOP), Fedorov et al . (2001) explicitly
stated that Norwegian environmental regulations were mere pretexts for
limiting Russia's presence on Svalbard. Similar thoughts were found in
Russian security and defence periodicals at the time ( Literaturnaya gazeta
1997; Smolovskiy 2000; Gundarov 2002a; Pomortsev 2005). 'The Svalbard
Environmental Protection Act is more about politics than the environment,'
one informant asserted; '[t]he Act is in line with Norway's aim to become
the only actor with a presence on Svalbard' (Jørgensen 2004:184). Jørgensen
(2004:188) concluded that 'as long as Russia looks at Svalbard from a secu-
rity policy perspective, Russians will find it hard to believe that Norwegian
environmental protection policies are not part of a security policy agenda'.