BarentsPortal

The initiative to prepare a joint Russian-Norwegian environmental status report on the Barents Sea Ecosystem was taken by the Joint Russian - Norwegian Commission on Environmental Cooperation, Marine Group in its meeting in Moscow November 7-8 in 2006. In 2007, the project has been acknowledged by the Joint Russian - Norwegian Commission on Environmental Cooperation and the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission.

The main funding of the report on Norwegian side have been supplied by the Ministry of the Environment. In addition, many of the involved institutions have participated through in-kind contributions.

On Russian side, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology have funded the work on the report. In addition, some of the involved institutions have participated through in kind contributions.

The work on the report has also drawn on the resources of national ongoing projects in Norway (e.g. FishExChange, Norwegian research council, contract 178338/S30).

We want to thank all the involved institutions, both on Norwegian and Russian side, for their positive response and follow-up of the work with the report. We also want to thank the members of the the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission and the Joint Russian - Norwegian Commission on Environmental Cooperation, and especially the Marine Group of the latter Commission, for valuable support and feedback during the planning and writing process.

This report could not have been made without the help of a few key persons, whom not have had authorship responsibility. Therefore, special gratitude is expressed towards:

• Julia Tchernova (NPI) - our project secretary, whom have had a tremendous work with keeping a good flow of communication between the Russian and Norwegian contributors through translations and numerous phone calls and e-mails. Julia has also had a sharp eye for emerging problems, which she has either solved herself or made the editors aware of, and thus contributed substantially to the follow-up of the expert groups. She has also contributed to technical editing and layout
• Elen Hals (IMR) – our project layout and editing expert, whom have spent many hours correcting all our comments and revisions, as well as struggling with tables, figures and text formats

Also thanks to all the other persons whom have been helping with figures, data, read through and comments. Among these we explicitly want to mention Karen Giertsen (IMR), John Dalen (IMR), Asgeir Aglen (IMR) and Jon Drefvelin (NRPA), Elin Hjelseth (IMR).

Kindly regards from the editors