The opportunity to share with a wider audience what and what for the forScience team actually does in the Arctic came in January 2024, during the kick-off meeting of project ICEBERG. It was then that we were first told just how well our work fits with the Atlantic & Arctic Lighthouse Weekly Hour webinars. And although we were swept away by a whirlwind of other activity shortly afterwards, we knew full well that the Weekly Hour was an opportunity not to be missed and that, sooner or later, we would have to find the time to take up the invitation to present. We managed in late autumn and the webinar focusing on the forScience activity in the Arctic took place on 20 November.
Cleaning the Arctic:
Uncovering the Scale, Scope and Sources of Marine Litter Pollution in the Remote North
Did you listen to it live? Excellent. Missed it? Not to worry. The event was recorded and is now available on YouTube, but let us not get ahead of ourselves.
The Weekly Hour webinars are organised by BlueMissionAA, which is a coordination hub supporting the implementation of the EU Mission “Restore Our Ocean and Waters”. And it’s the ocean, waters and their restoration that are the underlying theme running through all the webinars.
“Restore Our Ocean and Waters” is one of five EU Missions launched to find effective solutions to some of the greatest social and environmental challenges we face today. The work necessary for its implementation commenced in 2021 and – according to the Mission’s originators – it is expected to deliver tangible results by the end of the present decade:
- Protect and restore marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity
- Prevent and eliminate pollution of our ocean, seas and waters
- Make the sustainable blue economy carbon-neutral and circular
Bringing the ocean and waters back to their former glory is to be achieved through the combination of research and innovation, citizen engagement and blue investments. Will the plan work? Possibly, if we turn the words into deeds.
Through its Weekly Hours, BlueMissionAA does its best to make sure that the projects which help to bring the EU goals within reach do not go unnoticed by the general public. What is our Weekly Hour about? Cleaning the Arctic, of course!
BlueMission Atlantic & Arctic Lighthouse Weekly Hour with the forScience Foundation
0.00–2.13 Introduction | Valerie de Liedekerke, Atlantic International Research Centre
2.14–7.44: Overview of project ICEBERG | Thora Hermann & Élise Lépy, University of Oulu
7.45–43.43: Cleaning the Arctic | Barbara Jóźwiak, forScience Foundation
43.44–1.03.20: Q&A Session
The Weekly Hour webinar with the forScience Foundation is a virtual journey to the Far North. A copious serving of relevant information, spiced up with polar landscapes and glimpses of project fieldwork. The webinar explains the value of zooming in on stranded marine litter, points out the benefits of keeping it small and simple, demonstrates the need to challenge public perceptions, looks at the thorny issue of responsibility and talks about how, in the remote areas of the Arctic, official policies and guidelines seem to pose more questions and challenges than they solve. And on top of it all, it gives you a chance to look behind the scenes of forScience marine litter projects and discover how the idea that gave rise to Sørkapp Marine Litter Cleanup has grown, evolved and expanded into new endeavours.
Sounds interesting? Check the webinar out. A little bird told us that it’s well worth the time.