Northeast Svalbard Nature Reserve

Location of the Northeast Svalbard Nature Reserve

The Nordost-Svalbard-Naturreservat ( Norwegian Nordaust-Svalbard naturreservat ) is a 55,354 km² nature reserve in the Norwegian archipelago of Spitsbergen . It covers 18,663 km² of mainland and 36,691 km² of sea area, making it the largest nature reserve in Svalbard.

Walruses on northeast land

The nature reserve, founded in 1973, includes the islands of Nordostland , Kvitøya , Storøya , Lågøya and Sjuøyane , the König-Karl-Land archipelago and the Hinlopen Strait, including a coastal strip of the island of Spitzbergen and the islands in the strait such as Wilhelmøya , Wahlbergøya and Bastianøyane . The largest glaciers in Norway can be found in the northeast . The edge of the Austfonna ice cap on Erik Eriksenstretet is 190 kilometers and the longest in the northern hemisphere . The vegetation is very sparse in the entire nature reserve. Larger areas are cold deserts with no vegetation cover .

With König-Karl-Land, the Northeast Svalbard Nature Reserve has the most important breeding area for polar bears in the entire region. The islands are therefore not allowed to be entered all year round. The rocks of the Hinlopen Strait and the islands of Lågøya and Sjuøyane are home to breeding colonies of various sea birds. The rare ivory gull is also found in the reserve.

The protection in the reserve also includes historically significant sites. Probably the most famous is the last camp of Andrée's polar expedition of 1897 on Kvitoya, which was discovered in 1930. A dilapidated station of the Russian-Swedish degree measurement expedition from 1899 to 1900 stands on the coast of the Sorgfjorden on the island of Svalbard. The remains of the Haudegen Wehrmacht weather station from the Second World War can be found in the Rijpfjorden in Northeastern Land . The now unused Swedish research station for the International Geophysical Year 1957–1958 is located in the Kinnvika Bay of Murchisonfjorden .

Web links

Nordaust-Svalbard nature reserve ( Memento from March 28, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Norwegian Polar Institute (English)

Individual evidence

↑ Halvard R. Pedersen, Elin M. Lien, Hilde Arna Tokle Yri, Stein Tore Pedersen, Espen Stokke, Gunhild Lutnæs: Management Plan for Nordaust-Svalbard and Søraust-Svalbard Nature Reserves 2015–2013 (PDF; 11.3 MB). Report series no. 1/2015, ISBN 978-82-91850-41-2 (English).
↑ Regulations on the ban on access to König-Karl-Land (PDF; 8 kB), accessed on May 5, 2019 (English).

80 24Coordinates: 80 ° N , 24 ° E

[1] Halvard R. Pedersen, Elin M. Lien, Hilde Arna Tokle Yri, Stein Tore Pedersen, Espen Stokke, Gunhild Lutnæs: Management Plan for Nordaust-Svalbard and Søraust-Svalbard Nature Reserves 2015–2013 (PDF; 11.3 MB). Report series no. 1/2015, ISBN 978-82-91850-41-2 (English).

[2] Regulations on the ban on access to König-Karl-Land (PDF; 8 kB), accessed on May 5, 2019 (English).