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Elaboration of the Russian
NPA-Arctic was catalyzed by early ACOPS activities in the
CIS countries. Beginning in the early 1990s, ACOPS
launched a series of conferences on the state of the marine
environment in CIS countries. The third of these
conferences took place in July 1993 in Archangel, RF, and
focused on the problems of Arctic sea. The fourth ACOPS
conference in CIS countries was held in Moscow in 1994,
where discussions from the previous year continued and led
to the establishment of an ACOPS Russian Working Group for
identification and assessment of land-based sources of
marine degradation of the Arctic environment. Prof. Vitaly
Lystsov of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow was elected as
Chairman of this Working Group.
The Fifth ACOPS conference
in CIS countries was held in Saint Petersburg, January
1996, with broad participation of Russian Arctic
specialists and international experts. A comprehensive
review of the environmental situation in the Russian Arctic
was presented. As a result of this conference, a small
ACOPS working group was convened (Athens, March 1996) where
it was decided to prepare a concept document for Russian
NPA-Arctic.
In Moscow in October 1996 ACOPS organized a
special Workshop on the implementation of the GPA. The
Sixth ACOPS conference in CIS countries (Saint Petersburg,
February 1997) developed an outline of the NPA-Arctic.
Eight months later in Stockholm (November 1997), within the
framework of the ACOPS working group an International Task
Team (ITT) for the preparation of the National Program of
Action for Protection of the Marine Environment from
Anthropogenic Activities in the Arctic Region of the
Russian Federation (NPA-Arctic) was formed. Prof. V.
Lystsov was nominated coordinator of the Team.
The
framework of the NPA-Arctic was discussed at the ACOPS
Conference on the Oceans Security in February 1998 in
Stockholm. The third meeting of the ITT with participation
of the Goskomsever of Russia (State Committee on the
Affairs of the North, later replaced by a Department of
the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the
Russian Federation) took place in October 1998 in Moscow
and its results were incorporated in the NPA-Arctic. This
comprehensive process finally lead to the formulation of
the proposal for a GEF PDF-B Project on the Russian Arctic
“Support to NPA-Arctic”.
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