Northeast Passage the Novaya Zhelaniya straits (at the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, connecting the Barents Sea to the West and the Kara Sea to the East), to Cape Dezhnev by the Bering Strait. Therefore, the NEP encompasses all the East Arctic seas, and the NSR all the seas except the Barents Sea. Since the NSR constitutes the majority of the NEP, sometimes the term NSR has been used to refer to the entirety of the NEP. The governance of the NEP has developed considerably in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The main sources of governance are the United Nations Convention on
Novaya Zemlya Oblast, Russia. Municipally, it is incorporated as Novaya Zemlya Urban Okrug. The population of Novaya Zemlya, as of the 2010 Census, was about 2,429, of which 1,972 resided in Belushya Guba, an urban-type settlement that is the administrative center of Novaya Zemlya District. The indigenous population (from 1872 to the 1950s when it was resettled to the mainland) consisted of about 50–300 Nenetses who subsisted mainly on fishing, trapping, reindeer herding, polar bear hunting and seal hunting. Natural resources include copper, lead, and zinc. Novaya Zemlya was a sensitive military area during the Cold War years, and parts of it