When we think of an oasis, the first image that comes to mind is usually that of a lush green area amidst the endless sands of a desert, with camels quenching their thirst at a spring and caravan drivers dozing in the shade. Oases provide refuge from the heat and…
With the end of March upon us, spring is already in full swing. Unless, that is, you happen to be in Svalbard, which is still white, empty and downright wintry. The islands will finally come to life when the peace and quiet of polar winter gives way to the commotion…
It’s no mean feat to survive in the Arctic. There are some, however, who have brought the skill to perfection. In the course of evolution, northern species have developed a whole range of ingenious mechanisms and abilities, which help them thrive despite the cold and the dark. The adaptational virtuosity…
They’re everywhere. From carpets beneath our feet, through contact lenses in our eyes, to planes above our heads. Synthetic materials, although synthetic, have become perfectly natural, and the growing piles of plastic waste are just another element of our world. But discarded plastic accumulates not only in areas with thousands…
The archipelago was probably known of already by the Vikings. Brief mentions of “cold shores” in the area, which is now instantly associated with Svalbard, appeared for the first time in 12th-century Nordic sagas. The thing is, though, that no evidence has ever been found to confirm that the Vikings…
In mid-February, a remarkable meeting – or, more specifically, two remarkable meetings! – took place among the peace and quiet of Kampinos National Park, providing us with an opportunity to meet the ten candidates whose applications appealed to us the most.It is hardly surprising that our base was an old…
Seas and oceans have served humanity as rubbish dumps for hundreds of years, but initially it wasn’t much of a problem. As recently as at the end of the 18th century, there were merely 1.5 billion of us and the majority of rubbish we generated was made of natural materials,…
The letter-writing competition “Ludzie Listy Piszą” was held for the first time in 2014. The title could be translated as “People Write Letters”, but to a Polish person there’s a lot more to the pharse than its literal meaning. The words come from a song which has been around since…
Plastic is such an obvious element of today’s world that hardly anyone wonders what it actually is and why the negative consequences of its overuse can now be felt even in the most remote corners of the globe. Let us therefore shed some much needed light on the issue. Plastic…
This spring, Sørkapp Marine Litter Cleanup project received the patronage of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Poland. Despite the fact that the Embassy does not normally offer its patronage to initiatives carried out outside Polish borders, an exception was made in our case. The reason behind this exceptional treatment was…