Latest (and final) news update, April 2020:
The Barents Euro-Arctic Region is one of the worlds’ most vulnerable regions in terms of environment degradation and climate change impacts. The region is characterized by its harsh climate, large natural resources, long distances, rural areas and limited rescue personnel and equipment. As the region is becoming more accessible for activities on land and sea, the risk patterns in the region is changing. In the light of these challenges the Barents Cooperation and joint exercises becomes increasingly important in the future to ensure the living conditions of the people in the region.
The Exercise Concept developed for Barents Rescue 2019 provides a good basis for future Barents exercises to build on. Exercise participants had the opportunity to take part in different activities to increase learning, exchange of joint working methods and current knowledge and research related to exercised core capabilities while networking with different countries, sectors and actors.
The result of the evaluation assess the exercise objectives and pinpoints lessons identified and recommendations. Lessons identified in the exercise are largely reoccurring in previous evaluations of Barents Rescue Exercises (2013, 2015 and 2017). A main conclusion is that the collaboration should focus on preventing the same shortcomings from being repeated in upcoming exercises or rescue operations. It is through working jointly to take stock of previous lessons identified from emergencies and exercises that the joint capability in the region can strengthen and develop to allow for a well-coordinated collaboration in case of a complex emergency.
The international report from Barents Rescue 2019 has been finalized and can be downloaded from this link
--
The biennial Barents Rescue is a multi-lateral crisis management exercise under the framework of the Barents cooperation. During the exercise, national, regional and local actors focus on the handling of natural disasters, major accidents and others emergencies in the Barents region. The main organizer for the exercise in 2019 was the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Myndigheten för Samhällsskydd och Beredskap/MSB).
