ABSTRACT
The shrinking ice cover of the Arctic opens up for increased opportunities for trade between the European Countries and the Eastern Economies. The Northern Shipping Route has been established with an organized Russian Management system in place and the navigation in the Arctic is improving with the launch of new satellites. In other areas of the Arctic, the Norwegian and Danish administration are responsible for the European Arctic while the Canadian and the US administration are responsible for the Americas. We are of the opinion that it is of importance to confirm the applicability of the Northern Sea Route in case savings can be realized with respect to release of pollution and cost savings. This is considered necessary, as recently, Nike and several corporations have decided not to ship through the Northern sea Route (Arctic Today, 2019). They have "teamed up with the Ocean Conservancy in a pledge not to use Arctic shipping routes, citing both safety and environmental concerns about traversing the region". In general, there are few incidences associated with transport in the Arctic, however, there are still technical issues to resolve and we will point out challenges and solutions as well as research needs to ensure that Arctic shipping operations are safe and sustainable.
The Northern Sea Route Administration (no date) is in charge of organizing navigation in the water area of the Northern Sea Route. The main targets of the Institution are to ensuring safe navigation and protection of marine environment from the pollution in the water area of the Northern Sea Route. The tasks are done in a professional manner and the number of incidences is very few. In the past, there were many ships lost in the area (Marchenko, 2016), however, with more modern ship design and implementation of ice strengthening ship design codes, the incidences are few. We should realize, however, recent examples of incidents where vessels not authorized for travel in the area have had problems (e.g. the tanker Nordvik, Sept 2013, FleetMon, 2013). For a thorough discussion, see Marchenko (2014a and 2014b). Furthermore, the Research Vessel Akademic Ioffe ran aground in the Canadian Arctic in 2018 (Humpert, 2018), sending a warning signal to the Arctic cruise industry.
