Norway, Russia Strike Deal to Divide Arctic Undersea Territory
Disputed isle in Bay of Bengal disappears into sea
| It’s good that border disputes get resolved peacefully. What’s sad the way they get resolved, and that the resolution will aggravate another problem. Humans push some land under water and pull some undersea land up. We trim, blend, and append two 2010 articles from (1) Associated Press, Mar 24, on Bengal Bay by Nirmala George, and (2) The Moscow Times, Apr 28, on Barents Sea by Alex Anishyuk. |
by Nirmala George and by Alex Anishyuk
- Disputed isle in Bay of Bengal disappears into sea
For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone. New Moore Island in the Sunderbans, which Bangladesh referred to as South Talpatti, has been completely submerged.
"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta.
Until 2000 in the Bay of Bengal, the sea levels rose about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) a year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) annually, he said.
Another nearby island, Lohachara, was submerged in 1996, forcing its inhabitants to move to the mainland, while almost half the land of Ghoramara island was underwater, Hazra said. At least 10 other islands in the area were at risk as well.
Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people, is one of the countries worst-affected by global warming. Officials estimate 18 percent of Bangladesh's coastal area will be underwater and 20 million people will be displaced if sea levels rise 1 meter (3.3 feet) by 2050 as projected by some climate models.
There were no permanent structures on New Moore, about 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) long and 3 kilometers (1.5 miles) wide, but India sent some paramilitary soldiers to its rocky shores in 1981 to hoist its national flag.
The demarcation of the maritime boundary -- and who controls the remaining islands -- remains an open issue between the two South Asian neighbors.
JJS: That’s one way to settle a border dispute. Another is by negotiation. As the next pair of neighbors divide up the spoils -- oil -- they will displace more of the stuff that is causing little islands far away to sink. The sooner those sunny tropical nations harness solar power, the better.
- Norway, Russia Strike Deal to Divide Arctic Undersea Territory
Russia and Norway have reached an agreement on a long-running border dispute, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday, in a deal that will provide a framework for how the two countries divvy up the vast energy reserves on the Arctic shelf.
"The decision [we have reached] provides that the disputed territory in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean are divided into two equivalent parts," he said Tuesday at a joint news conference with President Dmitry Medvedev. "The way in which the border line will be drawn satisfies both states."
The agreement will regulate both fishing and drilling on 173,000 square kilometers of the Arctic shelf, which will be divided into two approximately equal parts. Details of the agreement were not disclosed as documents are still being prepared for the final deal.
The scuffles over the countries' Arctic border area have been a sore point in relations for some time. The Norwegian coast guard has detained a number of Russian fishing vessels over the years for various violations. In 2006, Russia temporarily banned the imports of fish fr om four Norwegian enterprises in what was largely seen as a political move.
Rights to develop the Arctic's vast energy resources have been another sticking point, but in a sign that the two sides may be warming to a more cooperative approach, Medvedev on Monday invited Norway's Statoil to explore the giant Prirazlomnoye oil field in the Barents Sea.
On Tuesday, he suggested that the two countries set up joint enterprises to explore oil fields and gas depots that will lie on the border that is yet to be drawn.
"In order to explore these or other gas and oil depots, we will require joint participation," Medvedev said. "This is the practical implementation of the agreements [we've reached]."
The agreement is a sign that Russia has given up on its Soviet-era aspirations to dominate the entire Arctic shelf, said Alexander Pikayev, a political scientist at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations.
"The Soviet Union set the limits of its economic zone on the shelf far beyond its borders, which contradicted international law," he said. "Now it looks like part of this previously desired territory was exchanged for easing Norway's fishing rules for Russian vessels and will bring joint oil and gas contracts to both countries."
Even recently, government officials have made no secret of their ambitions for the territory. In 2007, State Duma Deputy Artur Chilingarov led an expedition in a self-propelled deep-sea submersible and planted a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed near the North Pole. He later denied that the planting of the flag was an attempt to demonstrate Russia's rights to the region.
JJS: Politicians there could use the resource revenue to replace taxes on labor and capital, thereby freeing inventors and enterprise to more quickly harness clean, alternative energy. That’s part of the geonomic platform. Full implementation of geonomics would get civilization off its oil dependency even sooner.
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Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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Also see: Scarcity is sparking quarrels with national neighbors, too
250 million years ago, greenhouse-gases set off catastrophe
Did Big Oil really need relief from royalties? |
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