Seminar on marine littering
The County Governors of Nordland and Troms, on behalf of the North Calotte Waste Project and the North Calotte Environmental Council, organized a seminar on marine littering and micro plastics in August of 2015.
Dette innholdet er mer enn ett år gammelt. Informasjonen kan derfor være utdatert.
The seminar was conducted at Saltstraumen in Bodø on 24th and 25th of August 2015.
North Calotte collaboration
The North Calotte Council, which is an organ under the Nordic Council of Ministers, organizes and supports a number of projects across the borders of the Northern Periphery.
The three northernmost County Governors offices in Norway - Nordland, Troms and Finnmark, the County Administrative Board of Norrbotten in Sweden and Finlands Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment of Lapland are represented in this partnership.
At the seminar in Saltstraumen the North Calotte Environmental Council, which consists of environmental managers from the participating offices, met along with the waste group. This group normally consists of one representative from each county, but was this time reinforced by a number of our colleagues whose work includes waste management.
Theme of the seminar
Marine littering is a global problem. A large part of the marine littering is plastic and micro-plastics, which we are now beginning to see the consequences of.
To shed light on these issues, we spent the first day of the seminar to exchange experiences. Each office presented issues and projects in their own county.
The second day we were lucky to have the theme illuminated from different standpoints from dedicated and engaging presenters. Geir Wing Gabrielsen from the Norwegian Polar Institute presented research work on micro plastic. Øystein Aleksandersen from Nofir presented the system for recovery of waste from fishery and aquaculture that they have established. Bo Eide from Tromsø Municipality presented the project Clean Coast and the work they have carried out on surveys of plastic waste and beach cleanup.
The presentations from the seminar can be found here.
Photo: Geir Wing Gabrielsen at the Norwegian Polar Institute talks about research on micro plastics. (Photo: Hege Rasmussen, County Governor of Nordland)
Creating contacts
Salten, with its beautiful nature, is a perfect place for getting to know each other, create contacts and the lay the foundations for good cooperation across county and country borders. We were lucky that the weather proved very cooperative and after the academic program was finished, there was opportunity to go fishing in Saltstraumen and hiking to Per Kalsatind.
Photo: Fishing in Saltstraumen after the seminar (Photo: Hege Rasmussen, County Governor of Nordland)
Photo: Leg stretching after the seminar - decending from Per Kalsatind (Photo: Hege Rasmussen, County Governor of Nordland)