For more information on this marine science training and education
laboratory being established in Vladivostok, please contact:
Vera Alexander, Dean
School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Phone: +1-907/474-7824
Email: vera [at] sfos.uaf.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fairbanks, Alaska - Officials at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have
signed an agreement with the Russian Academy of Sciences to establish a
marine science training and education laboratory in the Russian Far East
city of Vladivostok.
UAF Chancellor, Marshall Lind, together with School of Fisheries and
Ocean Sciences Dean, Vera Alexander, and International Arctic Research
Center Director, Syun-Ichi Akasofu, signed the agreement November 19,
2001 in Fairbanks with officials from the Russian Academy of Sciences
and the Pacific Oceanological Institute.
"The purpose of this agreement is to combine the academic and scientific
expertise between our institutions to serve as a training and education
center for the study of fisheries, ocean, and climate issues of the
Bering Sea," said UAF Chancellor Lind.
The agreement calls for a new laboratory to be established in
Vladivostok at the Pacific Oceanological Institute. The lab will be
named in honor of Vitus Bering, the Danish explorer who from 1725-1743
explored on behalf of Russia's Czar Peter the Great, the coasts of
Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, and what is now Alaska. The lab will serve
as a training center for UAF and Russian fisheries and oceanography
students, while researchers from both countries will also conduct joint
studies of Bering Sea fishery oceanography, population dynamics,
fisheries conservation and management methods, and climate change
effects on the region's ecosystem.
The Bering Sea is shared by both Russia and the United States. It is
home to a rich variety of biological resources, including the world's
most extensive eelgrass beds; more than 450 species of fish,
crustaceans, and mollusks; 50 species of seabirds; as well as whales,
walrus, sea lions, and polar bears. Each year, Bering Sea and Gulf of
Alaska waters yield more than half of the U.S. domestic fishery
production of pollock, crab, salmon, and other commercial fishes. The
region is also the scene of dramatic, as yet unexplained, declines in
seabird, marine mammal, and fishery populations.
"Unprecedented changes have occurred in the Bering Sea ecosystem with
major die-offs of seabirds and declines of mammal species such as the
Steller sea lion and sea otter, as well as a severely reduced return of
salmon to the Alaska side of the Bering Sea coast," said Vera Alexander,
dean of the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. "The ecosystem
dynamics are highly complex and demand a formal effort by both our
nations to understand."
The primary participants on the United States side are the UAF
International Arctic Research Center and the School of Fisheries and
Ocean Sciences. On the Russian side, the primary cooperating institute
will be the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Pacific Oceanological
Institute, the Far Eastern Hydrometeorological Institute, the Institute
of Marine Biology, and the Pacific Research Institute of Fisheries and
Oceanography.
For further information contact Vera Alexander at SFOS, UAF
Phone: +1-907/474-7824
Email: vera [at] sfos.uaf.edu