UAF, RUSSIA TO ESTABLISH MARINE SCIENCE TRAINING CENTER IN VLADIVOSTOK

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 21, 2001

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 Nov, 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.

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Note to Editors: photos are available upon request.

CONTACT: Dr. Vera Alexander, Dean, University of Alaska Fairbanks, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, (907)474-6824, vera@sfos.uaf.edu.

DGS/CJB//12-21-01/02-034