Aberdeen – 2nd annual meeting for Smartfish
Smartfish is another Horizon 2020 project I am involved in – this one I am Project Leader for and work closely with the SINTEF Ocean team on coordinating the project – and this trip was the second annual meeting – we are halfway through the project, and it was time for us to discuss how to continue with the testing part of the project. SMARTFISH H2020 is an international research project which aims to develop, test and promote a suite of high-tech systems for the EU fishing sector. The goal is to optimize resource efficiency, improve automatic data collection for fish stock assessment, provide evidence of compliance with fishery regulations…
Brussels and the 18 month review
One of the research projects I have a work package leader role in is called COASTAL – and it is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. In this project, we take advantage of a unique multi-actor collaboration of coastal and rural business entrepreneurs, administrations, stakeholders, and natural and social science experts in our networks, and we developed a proposal where one of the aims was to formulate and evaluate business solutions and policy recommendations that had as its aim to improve coastal-rural synergies that could in turn foster rural and coastal development while still preserving the environment. My role in this project is to lead…
Bergen – January 2020
As soon as the New Year was over and regular work started, I flew straight over to Bergen to see my good colleague Dorothy and her colleague Jeppe – we are writing a proposal to Horizon2020 on fisheries and I needed input and help from Dorothy – we have worked together for many years and on many projects and proposals and she is excellent at what she does! I was only there for a day and a night – but despite what is said about how most things dont need trips – well – some things do – and working on proposals together is one of those things that in…
Annual Meeting – GoJelly! in Piran, Slovenia
What an amazing week in Slovenia! I sometimes pinch myself at how lucky I am to get to work on such exciting projects with a fantastic group of people from not only all over Europe – but also from within my own organization and my town! I had never been to Slovenia before – and did not know much about the country – but it has a very small coast line but a big personality! It is on the Adriatic sea, north of Croatia, south of Austria, and across the pond from Italy – and it was so quaint and sweet a place. We got there the day before, and…
South Africa, jellyfish and infiltrating a natural science conference
The GoJelly! project has taken me to South Africa now – Cape Town specifically! I was one of the convenors of the session on the Human-Jellyfish Nexus where the aim of the session was to place jellyfish within a larger system – namely the socio-ecological system – and bring attention to its effect – and possibility as use as a resource. I had the honor of kicking off the session with discussing GoJelly results from WP7 (Socio-Ecological System and Games), specifically the results from the questionnaire that was sent out throughout Europe in autumn of 2018. This questionnaire, which was distributed in 8 different languages and sent out via Facebook…
A Quick Trip to Brussels – 18 months of GoJelly to report on!
It is incredible that the crazy fun project GoJelly – a gelatinous solution to plastic pollution – is already done with its first 18 months – and that we are reporting on it too! The report went very well – and I am proud to be part of this team that is looking at how to exploit jellyfish blooms to develop new products – like cosmetics and food – as well as the innovations we are spearheading in also using the mucus from the jellyfish to develop a filter that can capture microplastics from waste water treatment plants. My job in this project is to lead the work on “Socioecological…
As the third round of BBNJ negotiations start in NYC…
The second article that Elizabeth Mendenhall, Elizabeth Nyman and Elizabeth De Santo and I have written about the BBNJ negotiations in Marine Policy is published – and my fourth article about the negotiations in total so far (two more are under review – and we have at least three more on the writing block). This article that we published today – as the third substantive session of negotiations started yesterday in NYC – is a review and our perspectives on the second round of negotiations that took place in March and April of this year – published in Marine Policy. Abstract to “A soft treaty, hard to reach: The second…
An Arctic conference in Hawaii – yes please!
August 14th-16th 2019, I went to the North Pacific Arctic Conference (NPAC), co-organized by the East-West Center and the Korea Maritime Institute, helt at the international Conference Center in Honolulu – to present on the BBNJ treaty negotiations, as part of my GoJelly project. What a place to hold a conference. Granted – its on the other side of the world – so I am still tired from this trip actually (Hawaii is 12 hours behind us in Norway). I got there a day before it started so that I could adjust – but alas – it was tough since I had only gotten back to Norway from Houston two weeks…
Article on the Plasticene
My newest article – Who cares about ocean acidification in the Plasticene? – was recently published Open Access in Ocean &. Coastal Management. I wrote it in collaboration with a number of fantastic researchers from all over Europe: Francisco Arenas – Aquatic Ecology & Evolution Group, CIIMAR-UP, Porto, Portugal Charles Galdies – Environmental and Management Planning Division, Institute of Earth Systems, University of Malta, Msida, Malta Francisco Leitão – Center of Marine Science (CCMAR), University of Algarve, Portugal Alenka Malej – National Institute of Biology, Marine Biology Station Piran, Slovenia Beatriz Martinez Romera – Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Cosimo Solidoro – Instituto Nazionale Di Oceanografia e Di…
BBNJ treaty negotiations
The second Intergovernmental Conferene (IGCII) started on March 25th and lasted until April 5th 2019 in New York City. I once again was fortunate enough to be able to participate in the negotiations as an observer, and along with my colleagues Elizabeth Nyman, Elizabeth Mendenhall and Elizabeth De Santo, we spent two weeks gathering data, interviewing participants, developing a database of delegate and NGO/IGO interventions, and writing on articles together. It was exhaustive – as per usual – but also every rewarding in terms of not only data gathering but also in terms of experience with following negotiations, and learning more about the informal rules of the game – as…
