Short Communication The Norwegian ecosystem-based management plan for

Barents Sea, including the fishery protection zone around Svalbard. Following international guidelines for ecosystem-based management, the plan provides an overall framework for managing all human activities (oil and gas industry, fishing, and shipping) in the area to ensure the continued health, production, and function of the Barents Sea ecosystem. The primary function of area-based management is the identification of areas of special importance from either ecological or human perspectives. In each area, access for different human activi-ties is to be carefully managed. The plan is based on an assessment of the current and anticipated impact of human activities and of the interactions between them, taking into account deficits in current knowledge of ecosystem state and dynamics. To monitor the overall development of the Barents Sea’s state of health, a set of indicators with associated environmental quality objectives has been developed