Miljøvernminister Thorbjørn Berntsen

Third International Barents Symposium: Environment In The Barents Region

Kirkenes, 12-15 september

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am grateful for being invited to take part in the opening of the Barents Symposium, which is this time dedicated to the Environment. The environmental challenges of the Barents Region is a matter of high priority for my Government and for myself. We started cooperation with the Soviet Union to protect the northern environment in 1988, and we have witnessed a rapid development since then.

Many of the issues that you are going to discuss in the Symposium, have in fact their roots in the environmental cooperation in this period between Norway and Russia. As an example, I will mention the comprehensive environment monitoring programme, which has been carried out by the Geological Surveys of Norway, Finland and Russia since 1993, and which is fully presented to the public for the first time here in this symposium. The results of this project will give the environmental authorities in Murmansk a very good basis for future planning and priorities in their region.

Although many things have happended since the 1980's, we are still in the early beginning of our efforts to protect the northern environment and to ensure a sustainable economic and social development for the inhabitants of this region.

Only five years ago we still argued with the Soviet Government about the need to protect the environment against economic and other activities, and it is only about three and a half years since the Russian Government officially admitted the dumping of radioactive waste in the Kara Sea.

However, after eight years of cooperation we are still struggling for an acceptable reduction of the emissions of sulphur dioxide and heavy metals from the nickel smelter in Pechenga. We are still waiting for concrete investments to be made on the Russian side to ensure environmentally acceptable handling and storage of all the radioactive waste in the Region.

I have stated time and again that a solution to these two important problems will be crucial for the realization of a broader cooperation in the Barents Region. We have told our Russian counterparts both in words and in action that whenever they make a contribution to the solution of these problems, we offer and give support both in these and other areas.

I fear, however, that considerable investments, both in environmental protection and in economic activities may have been delayed or prevented because of inaction on these two projects. The market depends on mutual confidence and is therefore very sensitive to what happens to the cornerstone projects. Had these problems been cleared away at an early time, I am convinced that we would now have seen a much higher level in our regional economic activities.

We have the experience that higher mutual confidence leads to higher investments, more trade, more environment projects, higher income, better welfare and more optimism. We must believe in what we say, and we must do what we believe in.

I am not a pessimist, however. Economic and social development over such a large area must necessarily be a long term project. We are patient with the many practical problems which our Russian neighbours are struggling with. But we are also eager to reach practical goals and milestones in the development. We have built up good relations with the regional authorities in Northwest Russia. I wish to strengthen this relationship and cooperation, because I believe that the local forces in Russia have themselves the most important key to the future development of their regions, both economically, socially and environmentally.

One important element in our cooperation with the regional authorities in Northwest Russia is the Environmental Management Programme which we are right now discussing with the authorities in Murmansk. Under this programme we wish to assist Russian authorities in building up their own capacity to carry our a modern, efficient and professional management of the environment. In my view, it will be important also to follow up this programme by extending it to other regions.

Another initiative we have taken in Northwest Russia is the so-called Cleaner Production Programme, which is now being carried out in many regions. Under this programme we have already achieved important environmental and economic results. I wish to see that this programme is continued in the future as one of the practical instruments for the regional authorities to achieve control over industrial pollution. I am therefore pleased to note that the Russian Centre for Cleaner Production, which is our formal Russian partner in this programme, has now been officially established in Moscow, in good cooperation with the Russian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (FNPR). Personally, I am of course particularly pleased to observe the good links that have been made to the Trade Unions, both in this programme and through their participation in the meetings of our Joint Environmental Commission. I hope this and other links to the human society of the Region will be further strengthened.

I know that all of you are just as eager as myself to see more concrete results of our cooperation in the Barents Region. I therefore see a great opportunity in the audience of this Symposium, where so many persons with knowledge and experience are gathered, -that you will join us in a creative brainstorming to find more constructive and practical solutions to the problems that now delay the environmental, economic and social development of the Barents Region.

With this wish for the future, Mr. Chairman, and with a wish of success for you and your conference, I declare the Third Barnets Symposium opened.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.