There is a serious side to visiting somewhere like Svalbard, and here I want to go into the ethical side of tourism in Svalbard – there’s a number of things to bear in mind when looking to visit.
Climate Change in Svalbard
To give you a sense of why it’s important to consider the ethics of visiting Svalbard, it’s important to know a bit of background.
Svalbard’s in one of the regions of the world most affected by climate change. According to official temperatures recorded at the airport at Longyearbyen, in the period between 2015 and 2023, the average January temperature rose by 8°C. In addition, in June 2023, the average temperature hit over 10°C for the first time (10.1°C), which is above the cut-off for defining what an Arctic-type climate is. Meanwhile in the north end of the Archipelago, Karl XII Island (80.66°N, so very polar) has seen an average temperature increase of 2.7°C per decade since 1981. Temperatures are rising here, and fast.
This increase isn’t just because Svalbard itself is getting warmer. Svalbard is located at the extreme northern end of the Gulf Stream, the current and wind that blows warmer air and sea north-east from Mexico. This water is also warmer than it used to be, by around 1.5°C since 1950. Both effects are combining to affect the sea-ice and glaciers on and around Svalbard, with both local and global consequences. With regard to glaciers specifically, they’re currently believed to cover 34,000 km² of Svalbard (or around 55% of its land area); this will halve by 2100. It’s calculated in fact that 8 gigatons of glacier ice melts every year; the more the climate warms the more will melt.
The ice wall glacier on a fjord near Longyearbyen.
On a local level this has significant effects on wildlife. Traditional fish species are moving north to follow the cold, and are being replaced by more southerly species. This impacts both sea-life in general as the balance is broken, but also feeding patterns for larger wildlife who may not be able to adapt to new fish. A more obvious issue though is the lack of sea ice means less room for larger creatures like polar bears and walruses, who use the sea ice to sleep, breed, and hunt. This combination of reduction of living area and hunting grounds leads to increased fighting for resources, malnutrition, and an increased likelihood of using land, bringing them into more conflicts with local human populations.
Reindeer in the open space in the town centre
Climate Change also affects land flora and fauna too – terrestrial life is adapted to harsh conditions and will be forced out if the default vegetation changes and new fauna come that the native species aren’t able to compete against or cope with. These invasive species could also bring new diseases that further eradicate the native species and change the balance of nature.
The Effect of Tourism on Svalbard
Now I just want to talk a little about the impact tourism has on Svalbard – both negative and positive.
One of the main issues in Svalbard, from an ethical tourism point of view, is cruise ships. We all know how polluting cruising can be. The problem is, it’s quite an important industry for Svalbard. Cruise Tourism alone is estimated to account for 50% of the tourism to Svalbard and 9% of Svalbard’s total economic activity, and that’s as of 2024 so will only get bigger, so it’s a large amount of money to completely disregard. Their compromise has been to limit by statute the size of the cruise ships that visit, quite substantially – I believe none larger than 200 people can visit. I don’t know if there’s a limit on number of ships. In addition, Hurtigruten Svalbard, one of the main maritime tourist companies, use hybrid-electric boats and are looking into renewable power (proclamations of the death of the age of sail are maybe premature!). The idea being, if they’re going to have to do this, they’re aiming to do it with as little as impact as they can.
Longyearbyen cityscape from the fjord.
Despite this, there is another ethical factor involved. It must be remembered Longyearbyen’s population is around 2,550. The town is not big enough for the cruise ships, no matter how small they’re mandated to be. When they rock up, the town gets swarmed, everything gets bought out, and then they leave. There’s not enough resource to handle such a large influx for such a short time. This is why one of the main guidelines issued by the Svalbard Tourist board is for people to stay a while, rather than just use it as a flying visit for the fjords and ice, and therefore spread demand for services and resources over days rather than hours.
Obviously the only other way of getting there is flying, which has its own, well-documented issues. To mitigate this, flights to Svalbard have an added 150 NOK (about $15 USD) added for the “Svalbard Environmental Protection Fund”, whose purpose is to is to “conserve and protect the rich natural environment and cultural heritage on the Svalbard islands.”. It also helps that there’s only one international airport, so if necessary, the number of arriving flights could even be controlled more strictly than it is.
Longyearbyen Airport, taken on my departure.
Another concern is around ‘citizen science tourism’. This is where tourists tag along on mostly-scientific expeditions; tourists like these types of trips as they feel they’re ‘involved’ and ‘doing something good’, but the scientists by and large hate them. There’s also a vibe of ‘greenwashing’ with such trips – especially as there’s a sense that they don’t really need to happen, and that the benefits to tourists are outweighed by the lower quantity of scientific value and the very fact there’s a big ship sailing through the fjords at all, which causes environmental hazards that such cruises are designed to show the malefits of.
Inside the boat on the fjord cruise.
You might wonder what the local population’s view of tourists is. My visit was too short to delve deeper into whether there’s any animosity between locals (as in, people who live there full time) and tourists or seasonal workers, but I did find the results of a survey conducted in 2022 and published in 2024 that had 238 respondents (that skewed slightly towards Norwegian residents rather than immigrants) and which strove to answer some related questions around this.
The biggest takeaways were that tourism wasn’t seen as a bad thing for Svalbard, but locals thought there was too much tourism specifically in the summer, and that they did wonder whether tourists took to heart the environmental strategies of the islands. On a scale of 1-5, where 5 indicated full agreement, one of the highest scores was in answer to “Tourism Degrades Nature” (4.47), while another high agreement score (4.3) was for the statement “There is too much tourism in the summer”.
Overall on the survey they’re not against tourism per se, and indeed acknowledge its importance, they just feel what they have is slightly too much. There’s also a belief and willingness that tourism *can* improve the tourist perceptions of wildlife and environmental concerns by visiting, but a feeling that in real life, few of them actually *do*.
The Ethics of Eating Local on Svalbard
Another aspect of ethical tourism is the age-old mantra ‘eat local, shop local’. However, in Svalbard there’s a couple of contrasting issues on this score. So for instance, I ate whale and seal while I was there. Partly this is all about sustainability. And report after report have highlighted that while Norway has strict minke whale hunting quotas that it seems to stick to (and the minke whale itself is not considered endangered as a result), it is true that Norway is one of the few countries that still hunts whales, and is often criticised for it.
Meanwhile seal hunting is a much more grey area, with less regulation and much less understanding on how many seals there actually are; the last large-scale seal population survey being undertaken seemingly nearly 25 years ago. Climate change hasn’t helped tracking of this, and is also likely to have pushed numbers down.
On land, the most commonly eaten local food would be reindeer, but there isn’t a lot of choice; the lack of much vegetation makes terrestrial options quite limited.
Reindeer stew at Vinterhagen restaurant.
With regards to fish, Norway is very protective of its fishing grounds which means there’s at least less scope for overfishing through other countries – they keep having arguments with the EU about it – but quite how much fishing Norway is doing on its own is unclear. They do sometimes instigate ‘bans’ on certain fish for several years in order to allow stocks to replenish, but certainly it’s believed by many that they are catching more than they’re allowed to. It seems part of this is a rule in Norway that ‘if you catch it, you keep it’; there’s no discarding of unwanted, undersized, or under-marketable fish back into the ocean. I’m by no means an expert on the intricacies of the fishing industries of northern Europe though, so take that with a pinch of salt. And vinegar.
However. The problem with ‘eating local’ on Svalbard is, well, the fact that nothing grows in this climate, so arable-based agriculture is inconceivable. A small number of greenhouses do exist, but in the main, if you can’t hunt it or catch it, you have to import it. And everyone living on Svalbard has the right to hunt – albeit with quotas, of course. Remember too, the climate requires fat. That’s partly why people came here in the first place. And what are whale and seal? Fat. So eating locally-hunted meat, regardless of the ethics of it, is more sustainable and environmentally-friendly than having a vegetable pizza.
Seal steak at Vinterhagen restaurant.
As an aside, you might be interested to know what whale and seal taste like. To my taste, whale was a bit like venison, quite a gamey meat, decent flavour. My seal steak had the texture of a slightly firm but still quite spongy chocolate cake, and tasted a bit like pork. Would definitely have again. Although unlikely unless I visit Svalbard again, let’s be honest.
How are people on Svalbard mitigating Climate Change?
Local businesses are acting sustainably. Svalbard Bryggeri, for example, is very self-sufficient. They burn their production waste – there’s too much for local producers to use, dumping it in landfill in this environment would be disastrous, and while they did look to export it, that would involve increasing the number of cargo ships serving the islands. By burning it though, they generate energy to power the brewery, and also heat water they use in the brewing process, thus being largely self-sufficient, at least in terms of energy use. They do export their beers to Norway’s mainland, but only on the normal supply vessels that operate the route and serve the islands as standard procedure, rather than on specific contracted transport.
Snowmobiles parked up in Longyearbyen.
Hurtigruten Svalbard use electric snowmobiles for their land-based tours, being one of the first organisations in the world to do so – I’m not sure how big that market is but when you’re on the front line of climate change, everything helps. And the islands as a whole have a target to produce their entire energy supply through renewable means by 2030; its sole coal-fired (what else!) power station closed in 2023, and production was switched to diesel generators in the interim. The main supermarket installed solar panels and these meet upwards of half their energy usage, at least in the summer months; other innovations include battery storage (useful when solar energy production is so variable across the year) and wind turbines.
One negative aspect about sustainability I feel is important to note is the relative transience of the population in general terms. It’s estimated of the around 2,550 in Longyearbyen, just under 1,700 were Norwegian – that’s an immigrant rate of 33%. This ignores the remainder of Svalbard’s population, chiefly the 297 in Barentsburg who are going to be pretty much all Russian, and again are likely contracted workers rather than permanent residents. Many of the foreigners stay for about 7 or 8 months in one session, covering at least one of the tourist seasons.
One of the Thai restaurants in Longyearbyen.
But transience isn’t just limited to the immigrant population – according to Statistics Norway, the average time people live on Svalbard for, across all nationalities, is seven years. It’s very much a place to come and work in, rather than make a long-term life on. Not only is there no elderly care on the islands, there’s no maternity hospital either, and little provision for illness of many kinds, so life itself can demand an end to your time here regardless of your intent. This lack of permanence and the resulting frequent population shift not only adds to the transportation effects of climate change but also means there’s a lot more need to ‘push’ environmental issues – there’s no mileage in such thoughts like ‘make it a place you want to grow old in’ and ‘do it for your children’, so potentially less latent incentive to ‘do the right thing’.
Can you visit Svalbard ethically?
One might argue, given such a situation, whether it’s right to visit Svalbard at all. Don’t worry, they ponder the same question. Svalbard has been designated a “Sustainable Destination” since 2022, and they’re very proud of it and were irked when they lost that designation in 2019. This is a designation created by Innovation Norway, a government agency, and means anyone given it has a commitment to focus on sustainability, and aims to improve efforts related to sustainability as an everyday measure. That doesn’t mean of course that Svalbard itself is ‘sustainable’ as a tourist destination – even Visit Svalbard acknowledge the dichotomy of being a popular destination in such a precarious environment –, rather it means always being open to the questions posed by sustainability and environmentalism, and seeing where they can reduce their impact; more importantly it means making decisions that could favour the environment over the tourist krona. And this despite tourism as a whole, especially since the mines closed, being ranked alongside scientific research as one of the most important industries – quite how important isn’t clear given how recently the mines did close so many of the stat indicators haven’t caught up yet, but it should become apparent in the coming years.
The coal railway cableway that dominates the ridges above the town.
So, how can we visit Svalbard ethically? Well, the local tourist organisation, Visit Svalbard, try to ensure tourists do this, and willingly and openly provide assistance and advice. They do assume though that people coming here are ethical in the first place – their website says “Increasingly more tourists are demanding and choosing destinations that demonstrate responsibility and that offer genuine and authentic experiences of high quality. We want to give you information about how you can experience the archipelago – with a good conscience.”. Although in fairness, it’s the sort of place you’d only visit if you already had that in mind – it’s not a place on everybody’s bucket list.
Their tips for ethical tourism are:
a) to make a visit for several days. Ensure you’re not just here to do one thing, or are just using Longyearbyen as a one-night stopover while you wait for an Arctic cruise. Spend time, explore, have a variety of experiences.
b) choose to visit places with or tour with a company that has an environmental certification. And they provide a comprehensive list of them. They also advise always using local companies and services, rather than ones or agents based in your home country, and of course buying local products and eat local food rather than imported goods.
c) Travel outside the peak season. While there’s two main almost unique reasons to visit Svalbard, the Polar Night and the Midnight Sun, it’s the latter that is far more popular, and especially the period Mid-May to mid-August. But of course with lengthy days (or nights, if that’s what you prefer), most activities are available for a much longer period, and indeed might be less crowded – certainly on my visit (in later August), it felt quieter than it could have been, and I was the only person on one of my booked tours.
d) Don’t only use motorised transport – use kayaks, dog-sledding, skiing, or hiking. You also don’t need to go too far to find spectacular activities; even hiking to a glacier is possible from the centre of Longyearbyen. To be fair, it’s not a place you’d really need to hire a car in, but even so, it’s relatively easy to keep your urban movements unmotorised.
e) Don’t pick the flowers. Indeed Longyearbyen has issued a whole list of guidelines for how they want guests to act. In some places this might be seen as ‘interference’, but here? I think it’s probably not just wise, but obligatory, to police tourists in some way. And most of it is common sense anyway. These include: don’t approach the wildlife, don’t disturb the dogs, ask people before photographing them, don’t touch historical sites or cultural relics, and make sure you dispose of rubbish correctly.
Longyearbyen at Sunset, or as much as Sunset existed on my visit.
The taking of tours is quite fundamental, as Svalbard isn’t exactly a destination for independent travel, because of, you know, polar bears. And an extreme climate and topography. And a lack of infrastructure, resources, and, let’s face it, pretty much anything, outside Longyearbyen. The Visit Svalbard has a full list of tours and tour companies, order-able by many options including style, date, length, and price, and you can book tours directly through it. All tour companies available are licensed / authorised by Visit Svalbard and they’ll only put forward trips that meet strict ethical criteria.
This isn’t just about environmental and animal welfare issues (including husky rides and wildlife cruises) but also political ones. For example, Pyramiden is very popular for tourists but Visit Svalbard have stated due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they aren’t currently advertising any on their website, and while they say it’s still possible to visit on a tour, most of the tour companies who work with Visit Svalbard have removed the option from their brochures too.
Pyramiden from the fjord cruise boat.
Which slightly irked me, as I really wanted to see the world’s most northerly Lenin statue.
