This report is a co-operation project between the Joint Russian - Norwegian Commission on Environmental Cooperation and the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission. The initiative to the report was taken by the environmental commission and was later acknowledged by the fisheries commission. Formally, it is the realisation of Project no. 1 of the Work Program for 2009-2010 for the Russian-Norwegian Environmental Cooperation, as approved by 14th meeting of the environmental commission. The work has been carried out under the umbrella of the Marine Working Group of the environmental commission and has build on the experiences from the series of previous joint PINRO/IMR reports on the status of the Barents Sea ecosystem (Stiansen et al 2006, 2007, 2008).