November 5, 2008
Lars-Otto Reiersen is educated in marine biology from the University of Oslo, Norway in 1978. He has worked as a scientist at the University of Oslo (1979 to 1984), and conducted research on basic processes in marine fish and effects of oil and other contaminants on fish.
From 1985 to 1992 he worked at the Norwegian State Pollution Control Authority handling the environmental regulation of shipping and oil and gas activities (exploration and exploitation) in the seas around Norway and at Svalbard. In addition he has been national delegate to the Oslo and Paris Commission and the London Dumping Commission. He has been in charge of developing a new system for testing and approval of chemicals to be used by the oil and gas industry in their offshore operations, and to establish a chemical and biological monitoring program of the marine environment in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea. He was the Chair of the Scientific Assessment group that made the assessment of the Pollution of the North Sea under the North Sea Task Force (1988 to 1993).
In 1989 he was involved in the establishment and implementation of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) later transferred to the Arctic Council in 1997. Since 1992 he has been the Executive Secretary for Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP). AMAP has produced several comprehensive scientific reports on the pollution of the Arctic and its effects on Arctic ecosystems and humans. In 1997 he started the design and implementation of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), the first comprehensive Arctic climate scientific assessment report was presented in 2004/2005.