Recently in Svalbard Category

Walrus at Poole-Pynten, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Walrus, Odobenus rosmarus, taking it easy on a Sunday afternoon at Poole-Pynten, Prins Karls Forland island, Svalbard.

Arctic Fox mother and cub, Ny-Alesund, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Arctic Fox mother and cub, Ny-Alesund, Alopex lagopus, living under the &"London Houses" - the Dutch research station at the international research base at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard. The mother had lost her white winter coat in the preceding weeks - those are id-tags on her ears, as she's a known character in the area!

Common Eider Duck, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Eider drake stands on a roadway outside Longyearbyen, while craning its neck to vocalise its oh-oooo call. Common Eider Duck, Somateria mollissima, at the dog yard outside Longyearbyen, on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, Svalbard. The eider nest between two enclosures of sled dogs on the outskirts of Longyearbyen, where the eggs are safe from the arctic fox, which is too scared to come close to the howling dogs.

Picture made during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition, 2010

Arctic Terns, sterna paradisea, Ny Alesund, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Arctic Tern, sterna paradisea, preparing to mate and nest in the Arctic scientific research village of Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.

Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Arctic Terns, sterna paradisea, Ny Alesund, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Arctic Tern, sterna paradisea, preparing to mate and nest in the Arctic scientific research village of Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.

Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Arctic Terns, sterna paradisea, Ny Alesund, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Arctic Tern, sterna paradisea, preparing to mate and nest in the Arctic scientific research village of Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.

Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Purple sandpiper, Ny Alesund, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Purple sandpiper, caldiris maritma, on the beach, at Ny Alesund, Svalbard.

Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Ivory Gull perched above seal meat, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Ivory gull, pagophila eburnea, perched above a rack of dried seal meat at the dog yard, Ny-Alesund, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway. Populations are currently in decline throughout the Arctic, possibly because of decreasing sea ice, and the PCBs and DDE found in the food they eat, for instance seal carrion from polar bear kills.

Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Male Snow Bunting, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Male Snow Bunting, Plectrophenax nivalis, on tundra, with coal fragments from old coalmine at Ny-Alesund, Spitsbergen, Svalbard.
Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Svalbard Reindeer, Ny-Alesund, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Svalbard Reindeer, Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus in Ny-Alesund, Svalbard. There's about 10,000 Svalbard reindeer, a small subspecies of mainland European reindeer, and are endemic to Svalbard. They are not domesticated, and are not owned by anyone.

Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Cracked Tundra, Ny Alesund, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Cracked Tundra, Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.

Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Seal in the harbout at Ny-Alesund, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Seal, probably Ringed Seal, in the harbour at Ny-Alesund

Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Siberian driftwood, Ny-Alesund, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Driftwood, probably from Siberian forests on the beach at Ny-Alesund, Kongsfjord, Svalbard - where there are no trees.
Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. http://www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Black Legged Kittiwake, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Black Legged Kittiwake, rissa tridactyla, landing amongst fragments of sea ice Kongsfjord, Svalbard. Kittiwake populations have been under pressure in recent years, as changes to food sources, possibly caused by climate change and other environmental factors, have forced the birds to travel further, for longer, to get food.

Photographed during the Greenpeace Arctic Under Pressure expedition 2010. http://www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

Dramatic clouds over the mountains, Svalbard, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Dramatic clouds over the mountains, in Adventfjorden, Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Photographed from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, as it arrived for the Arctic Under Pressure expedition
www.greenpeace.org/arctic2010

View of the mountains across the Adventfjordren from Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

View of the mountains across the Adventfjordren from Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard

Snowing on the sunset at the mouth of Isfjord, Svalbard, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

Snowing on the sunset at the mouth of Isfjord, Spitsbergen, in the Norwegian archipelego of Svalbard. Seen from the deck of the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, during an expedition to examine the effects of climate change on the Arctic.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault, originally uploaded by Dave Walsh Photography.

More pictures here »

Nestled into the rocky waste of plataberget Mountain about Svalbard's airport, the Global Seed Vault is at once startling and innocuous. Designed by architect Peter W. Søderman at Barlindhaug Consulting, this concrete, steel and glass structure is the first layer of security to a repository of millions of seeds from around the world, stored here in case of disaster, disease, or war.

The Svalbard Global Seed Bank is situated 120 metres (390 ft) inside a sandstone
mountain at Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen Island, in the Svalbard archipelago about 1300km from the North Pole. Svalbard was considered ideal for the bank, due to low tectonic activity and its permafrost, which will aid preservation. Even if sea levels rise due to climate change - and the melting of ice caps, the seeds will be safe and dry , as they are stored at a location 130 metres (430 ft) above sea level.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault provides a safety net against accidental loss of diversity from traditional storage within genebanks around the world, and has a capacity for 4.5 million seeds. Although the media has made much of the "Doomsday Vault's" role in providing security in the face of war or or catastrophe, the operators - the Norwegian government and the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center - say that it will be most useful when genebanks lose samples due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts and natural disasters.