Overview
Maybe we could clean it up? That’s the question that gave rise to Sørkapp Marine Litter Cleanup, a two-year project conducted by the forScience Foundation, a Polish NGO with a core team of two, which focused on the issue of stranded marine litter along the south-western coast of Spitsbergen, Svalbard. The project team collected not only marine litter, but also litter data, shedding light on litter types, amounts, distribution and accumulation rate in an area which sees much litter pollution but hardly any people.
Three fieldwork campaigns and over 8 tons of marine litter later, the forScience team are still pursuing their goal of a cleaner Arctic, now under an EU-funded transdisciplinary research project ICEBERG and soon also under Sørkappøya Marine Litter Cleanup. With each new project, they venture further, look wider, probe deeper and learn lessons which you too may find useful.
The webinar will explain the value of zooming in on stranded marine litter, point out the benefits of keeping it small and simple, demonstrate the need to challenge public perceptions, look at the thorny issue of responsibility and talk about how, in the remote areas of the Arctic, official policies and guidelines seem to pose more questions and challenges than they solve.
Programme
14:00
Welcome by Valerie de Liedekerke, BlueMissionAA / AIR Centre
14:05
Introduction by Thora Herrmann and Élise Lépy (University of Oulu, Finland)
14:15
Talk title: forScience against marine pollution: collecting stranded marine litter and litter data in south-western Spitsbergen, Svalbard
14:45
Q&A moderated by Valerie de Liedekerke, BlueMissionAA / AIR Centre
Speakers
SPEAKER
Barbara Jóźwiak
forScience Foundation
A philologist by training, Barbara spent over a decade working as a language teacher and educational manager in Russia and Kazakhstan, and as a volunteer teacher in remote corners of India, spending breaks between contracts roaming the roads, routes and paths of Asia.
The experience played a major part in shaping her current outlook on education and life in general. In 2013, she first visited Svalbard and two years later spent a month at the Polish Polar Station Hornsund, trying her hand at project fieldwork.
Afterwards, she gradually shifted her attention from language to science and the environment. She worked as a translator for the Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Silesia.
Nowadays, she devotes the majority of her time to the forScience Foundation, where she gets involved in initiatives combining science and education with environmental protection and the preservation of cultural heritage.
She is particularly interested in the issue of stranded marine litter in the Arctic. She was the leader of Sørkapp Marine Litter Cleanup project and co-leads its spin-off – Sørkappøya Marine Litter Cleanup. She is also an active participant and a work package leader in the EU-funded project ICEBERG, which studies ocean and coastal pollution in the Arctic.
Resources
November 20, 2024, Atlantic & Arctic Lighthouse Weekly Hour S03E03 - Cleaning the Arctic: Uncovering the Impact of Marine Litter in the Remote North
Relevant links
Sørkappøya Marine Litter Cleanup project aims to contribute to past and present clean-ups by targeting the heavily polluted island of Sørkappøya, located off the southernmost tip of Spitsbergen, within Sørkapp Bird Sanctuary, where high concentrations of stranded litter destroy habitats and endanger wildlife which, being legally protected, should be able to thrive free from anthropogenic pressure.
It studies ocean and coastal pollution and creates governance and resilience strategies with European Arctic communities.
For more information on the forScience Foundation’s contribution to the project, please follow this link.
Sørkapp Marine Litter Cleanup was an initiative focusing on the issue of marine litter in remote areas of the Arctic and combining scientific goals with down-to-earth practical work for the sake of the natural environment.