Norway has created the Andfjorden marine protected area, which its government calls the country’s largest. A royal resolution on Sept. 18 protects about 714 square miles of ocean off northern Norway. The area holds coral reefs, kelp forests, and nursery grounds for fish.
At a glance
- Decision: The Norwegian government set the protection in a royal resolution on Sept. 18, according to its announcement.
- Size: The area covers 1,848.5 square kilometers, or about 714 square miles, in the waters of Andøy, Harstad, and Senja.
- Share: The protected portion of Norway’s mainland territorial waters will rise from about 4.8% to 6%, the government said.
How the Andfjorden marine protected area works
The area lies in the northernmost part of Nordland county and the southernmost part of Troms county. It follows a line from the shore, through a shallow fjord threshold, to open ocean and deep water.
Part of the purpose is science. The regulation calls the area a reference site for long-term monitoring, including the effects of bottom trawling and seine netting. Two reference zones northwest and north of Andøya ban bottom-towed fishing gear.
The rules also bar damage to seabed animals and plants, including kelp. They ban seabed mining, dredging, and building structures on the seabed. Firing torpedoes with explosive warheads is banned across the whole area.
What the protection shelters
The government lists coral reefs, coral gardens, sponge and sea-pen communities, kelp forests, shell-sand seabeds, and maerl beds. Maerl is a hard, coral-like red seaweed that builds seabeds. Kelp, shell-sand, and maerl beds serve as spawning, nursery, and feeding grounds for many fish, and large numbers of whales and seabirds use the area.
The royal resolution adds detail. It says one zone holds one of the largest and best-preserved coastal coral reefs in Norway. Another holds a bamboo coral forest, a red-listed habitat ranked as endangered.
What remains unresolved
The government calls Andfjorden Norway’s largest marine protected area, but its announcement does not compare it with other areas. Protection is also stricter in some places than others.
The regulation bans bottom-towed gear in four named zones. It describes no such ban in the rest of the area, and the published documents give no figure for how much of the area the zones cover.
The resolution says WWF and others asked for a broader trawling ban, which was not adopted. Two fishing industry groups, Fiskebåt and Pelagisk forening, opposed any fishing restriction. Nord Fiskarlag, a fishers’ association in northern Norway, accepted bottom-trawl limits in a 2023 C.E. statement but raised concerns about military noise and fish farms.
Other activity continues. Military operations are allowed within limits, though the spaceport operator Andøya Space had objected to parts of the detonation rules. Fish farming is not banned outright, and the Sámi Parliament’s request to prohibit it was not adopted.
What comes next
The county governor’s office for Nordland and Troms manages the area at first and must write a management plan. A dedicated board with members from the municipalities, county authorities, and the Sámi Parliament is to follow, the government said. The regulation lists preserving the Sámi natural resource base as part of the purpose.
Climate and Environment Minister Sigrun Aasland said the decision shows nature can be protected while fishing and tourism continue. Andfjorden is one of 36 areas in Norway’s 2004 C.E. marine protection plan, and 24 are now protected.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Norwegian government (Ministry of Climate and Environment) and Good News Network
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Papua New Guinea announces one of the world’s largest no-take marine reserves
- New Zealand opens five marine reserves under Māori co-governance model
- The Good News for Humankind archive on marine conservation
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