Thomas Nilsen

Well-fed polar bears are not necessarily stuck at Novaya Zemlya due to climate change, experts say

Photos and videos of the more than fifty polar bears walking around the houses in Belushaya Guba have gone viral in world-wide media arguing climate change is to blame.
February 14, 2019

With tailings to be dumped at sea, copper mine gets approval

Sami interests and environmental groups will appeal the Norwegian Government’s decision on Thursday to grant permission for controversial mine waste dumping in Repparfjord on the coast to the Barents Sea.
February 14, 2019

Stoltenberg condemns GPS jamming from Kola

A smiling Jens Stoltenberg got his border zone ID card to enter the Pechenga region five years ago. Today, the security situation in dramatically changed in the border region between Russia and Norway.
February 13, 2019

11 Russian fighter jets made mock attack on Norwegian Arctic radar

Flying in attack formation, the group of Su-24 attack aircraft turned away just before Norwegian airspace.
February 12, 2019

Tiny small levels of radioactive iodine discovered in Troms

Source of the radioactivity blowing in the wind is unknown.
February 11, 2019

Arctic railway not commercially viable, report says

Finnish-Norwegian working group says cargo volumes are too small to justify building a railway from Rovaniemi to Kirkenes.
February 11, 2019

“We must be prepared for clearer Chinese presence in our neighborhood”

Chief of Norway’s military intelligence service, Lieutenant General Morten Haga Lunde, highlighted Chinese, Russian Arctic cooperation in his annual focus report.
February 11, 2019

Construction workers frustrated with GPS jamming near border to Russia

Repeatedly disturbances of satellite navigation signals now troubles road constructors in Kirkenes.
February 10, 2019

Polar bears 'invade' military town

52 polar bears are walking around the corners in the town of Belushya Guba on Novaya Zemlya scaring people from leaving their houses.
February 09, 2019

Moscow accuses Norway of northern military buildup - Here is map of submarine ports

Norway allows allied nuclear submarines to make port calls to the civilian industrial harbor of Grøtsund north of Tromsø, 375 kilometers from the Russian border.
February 08, 2019

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Thomas Nilsen is editor of the Independent Barents Observer with its news desk located in Kirkenes, northern Norway. He has a long experience in media cooperation across the borders in the high north of Europe, both as radio- and newspaper reporter all the way back to the days before the breakup of the Soviet Union. 

Nilsen has been editor of Barents Observer since 2009.

He was Deputy Head of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat from 2004-2009. Until 2003, he worked 12 years for the Bellona Foundation’s Russian study group, focusing on nuclear safety issues and general environmental challenges in northern areas and the Arctic. 

Thomas has been traveling extensively across northern Scandinavia and Arctic Russia since the late 80’s working for different media and organizations. He is also a guide at sea and in remote locations in the Russian north for various groups and regularly lectures on security issues, environmental and socio-economic development.

Thomas Nilsen studied at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Mobile: +47-90573143

thomas@thebarentsobserver.com
@nilsen.thomas