• The project presented its progress in sampling campaigns in the Irish Sea and in the northern Adriatic Sea.
• To round off the event, we hosted environmental journalists and projects aligned with the European Maritime Day In My Country (EMD 2024) to raise awareness about ocean protection

ONE-BLUE presented the progress of the project in the webinar “ONE-BLUE: DISCUSSING CHALLENGES IN THE OCEAN PROTECTION” held last Tuesday, October 1. Held in the framework of the European Commission’s initiative “European Maritime Day In My Country”, the event has served as a platform to explain to the public the latest progress of the project in the Irish Sea and Northern Adriatic Sea sampling campaigns. In case you want to rewatch the webinar, you can access through this link.

The webinar, moderated by Jon Larratxea, communication officer in ONE-BLUE and ONE-BLUE partner the Finnova Foundation, also hosted representatives from the European Commission. In this case, the event began with an institutional welcome by Anna Popova, International Relations Officer at the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries of the European Commission to raise awareness. Ms Popova introduced the European Union’s recent efforts in ocean conservation, and explains which will be the next aims of the EU in ocean legislation, including the BBNJ Agreement.

Following this, David Alcaide Benavides and María García Torné from the Instituto de Diagnóstico Ambiental y Estudios del Agua (IDAEA-CSIC) presented the updates on the Irish Sea sampling campaign. Conducted in June, this campaign was extended through 10 sampling points along the Irish coastline, enhancing the understanding of the concentrations, profiles, fate, behaviour, and effects of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in the Irish sea. The research will be part of a broader effort to improve current knowledge of these pollutants on the Atlantic Ocean, one of the three ONE-BLUE’s study cases.

This was followed by insights from Cinzia Centelleghe from the Università degli Studi di Padova and Sara Valsecchi from the CNR Istituto di Ricerca Sulle Acque, who discussed the North Adriatic Sea sampling campaign. They explained their collaborative efforts in collecting and analyzing marine data, focusing on the collection of sediment and seawater samples at various depths, with plans to include biota samples. The sampling campaign began on September 2-3, 2024, and it will be completed with two additional campaigns scheduled for mid-October and late October 2024. They also highlighted that the sampling protocol follows the same methodology used in the Irish campaign, ensuring consistency across both studies.

The webinar featured a panel on environmental communication with Nathan Canas, Energy and Environment reporter at Euractiv and Lise Helset Eide, communication advisor and web editor at Naturvernforbundet. Lise highlighted some challenges going on in Norway, where climate issues have lost prominence in the media due to the pandemic first and economic concerns after. Canas also agreed on this point and added that is important to take information from scientific publications and groups to have trustworthy informations about climate change to avoid fake news. Both emphasized the importance of engaging the public, with Eide focusing on collaboration with scientists and organizing public events, and Nathan advocating for more coverage of local climate impacts to make the issue more relatable. Regarding the pessimistic narrative that usually goes along with environmental news, Both agreed on the importance of balancing alarming climate change narratives with solutions, with Canas suggesting to offer positive points alongside consequences, and Eide noting the need to focus on what audiences want to know, rather than just pushing a catastrophic message.

The final panel featured two organizations that have already organized events within the framework of the EMD 2024. Anca-Maria Panait, events coordinator at NGO Mare Nostrum, presented the main lines of action of this organization, which has worked over 30 years in marine biodiversity conservation and education. Regarding EMD 2024, NGO Mare Nostrum has created several events since 2019, showing their commitment to this EU initiative, and Panait highlighted an event on marine litter monitoring and the Black Sea Race to raise awareness of coastal issues. Inés Boujmil, project coordinator AquaBioTech Group discussed also his organization’s efforts on sustainability in projects like Science in the City, Science in the Citadel, FishEUTrust Ideathon and beach cleaning ups. Also, Boujmil introduced the upcoming Art Contest Hackathon, focused on tackling marine pollution as part of EMD 2024.

ONE-BLUE: Commitment to Ocean Protection

This has been ONE-BLUE’s second webinar framed in EU initiatives, reaffirming its commitment to European initiatives focused on ocean protection and environmental issues. By uniting researchers, policymakers, industries, media and general public, ONE-BLUE aims to strengthen ocean resilience, ensuring the long-term health of marine ecosystems.

ONE-BLUE aims to investigate the presence and impacts of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in marine environments, understand how climate change modifies these impacts, and develop advanced monitoring tools and methodologies to support effective management and policymaking.