Second part of the Arctic Marine Beach Litter expedition At this moment, we are sailing on the Ortelius with Oceanwide Expeditions around the northern tip of Spitsbergen. We are on our way to the next monitoring location of this second part of the Arctic Marine Litter expedition. Like the first…
The first time on the water is always a bit hectic, developing the best working process with the equipment and research team. After a few hours everything worked fine and we were able to complete the whole sampling we had scheduled for that location. Fulmars joined us around the boat during the whole sampling. So what did we do during sampling?
Monitoring for litter on Poolepynten and Sarstangen shows the ocean pollution of the Gulfstream. On its way to the North, the Gulfstream will pick up any litter item that floats. When these items arrive in the Arctic, they will remain here. This is why the amount of litter in the Arctic is building up every year. As a consequence, the sea around Svalbard ends up becoming the drain hole of the Gulfstream.
During the first litter monitoring on Jan Mayen, it was noticable that much of the found litter was fishery litter. We found 104 floats or pieces of floats, bits of net (26), tangled nets (20) and ropes (43) on the beach.
In remote regions such as the Arctic, some beaches are literally strewn with large pieces of litter such as nets, buoys, household plastics and other waste. This raises all kinds of questions. How can so much marine litter end up here? What is it exactly? How does it find its way into the ocean? And where does it come from? One could also wonder whether there is a link to certain economic activities in Svalbard, or whether the litter has come from further afield. If so, from where and how?
‘We currently get most of the proteins we need from eating meat, but the cultivation of seaweed is much less damaging to the environment than meat production. Giant seaweed farms have the potential to provide the entire world population with protein and so save our scarce land-based resources. Seaweed processing platforms will replace the oil platforms of today. So is mariculture the future? I believe it is: there are plenty of opportunities waiting. Let’s eat more seaweed!’.
– By : Steve Geelhoed – Off survey flight The sun shines over northern Scotland. We are in our hotel in Inverness though. Off effort. Validating data from the last three days of surveying. The wind is too strong to survey. The last days the weather was suitable enough to…
– By: Isolde Puts – The polar days in Ny-Ålesund passed by very fast. The focus during the last few days were on finishing the experiments, cleaning up in the labs, and storing our research equipment. And now we’re back home. Midsummer celebration at Ny-Ålesund Luckily I could celebrate the ending…
– By: Tinka Murk – Socks with holes Life at research station Ny-Ålesund differs a lot from life in the Netherlands. I feel at home quite easily. Not only because everybody here speaks Norwegian to me (I guess I look quite Norwegian), but also because life is quite easy going…
– By Meike Scheidat – The survey set-up for cetacean viewing On Monday all teams assembled at their respective bases, which are spread out across Atlantic Europe from northern Norway to Portugal. This first day was spent on training and doing some “dry runs” with the equipment. Surveys are run…