Environmentally-Minded Tourists Cleaning Beaches in Northwest Spitsbergen

Vlissingen, the Netherlands, 7 July 2016 - Tourists of the “Eco Volunteer, North Spitsbergen” trip organized by Oceanwide Expeditions have been cleaning the beaches of Northwest Spitsbergen. Tourists on this specially-designed cruise spend half of their cruise cleaning beaches of detritus washed up by the tide.

Approximately 16 cubic metres of waste was collected from a total of 4.25nm of beach. 3 m3 more than the similar trip contributed on the same vessel - m/v Ortelius - last year. The garbage was sorted onboard and with the assistance of Sysselmannen and the Svalbard Environmental Fund it has now been disposed of in a proper manner.

The cleaning efforts were concentrated in the historically important areas around Danskøya and Amsterdamøya in the Northwest Spitsbergen National Park which are significant sites associated with the late 19th Century race to the North Pole and 17th Century whaling ventures, respectively. The sites were selected in cooperation with theSysselmannen, the governor of Svalbard who provided support with large storage bags and burlap sacks.

The voyage has attracted employees from the UN Environment Programme, the WWF, and PhD writers. The refuse is mainly discarded fishing gear and plastics, breaking down to roughly:

• 40% nets and ropes
• 40% plastic
• 10% floats
• 10% miscellaneous objects

Celebrating the success of the program Expedition Leader Jim Mayer said, “Once again I have been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of the passengers for their cleaning task and their disappointment once the job is over.”

Background

In recent years more and more focus has been on the immense quantity of garbage (in particular plastics) that is dumped into the oceans of the World. Although the high Arctic archipelago of Svalbard is very remote, the Gulf Current terminates in this area bringing up untold tons of garbage every year. Oceanwide Expeditions completed the first “Clean Up Svalbard” trip of the Svalbard cruise industry in 2015.

About Oceanwide Expeditions

Since 1996 Oceanwide Expeditions has offered small-group polar expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctica. They own, manage and operate the vessels m/v Plancius (116 pax), m/v Ortelius (116 pax), s/v Rembrandt van Rijn (33 pax) and s/v Noorderlicht (20 pax). The vessels comply with the highest international safety standards for passenger vessels such as SOLAS (Safety-Of-Life-At-Sea) and allow the crew to navigate safely through pack-ice and remote narrow waterways.

The Dutch “Plancius Foundation” (1981-1996) was the predecessor of Oceanwide Expeditions. Starting in 1983 it was the first cruise operator to organize yearly expeditions to Spitsbergen.