On Monday, July 23, the conference given by the protagonists of the “Ocean Mapping Expedition” project took place in the Auditorium of the Faculty of Marine Sciences of the University of Vigo. This expedition has been following the trail of Magellan/Elcano for four and a half years, aboard the Swiss sailboat Fleur de Passion, studying the human impact on the ocean and trying to promote environmental education worldwide.
The presentation was attended by two members of the sailboat’s crew, Yaiza Santana and Samuel Gardaz, with the researcher from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography Jesús Gago and the Head of the Oceanography Unit of ECIMAT, José González.
Samuel Gardaz, vice president of the Fondation Pacifique, in charge of public relations and founding member, spoke of the project as a set of scientific, socio-educational and cultural programs that, with a multidisciplinary spirit, seeks the encounter and exchange of experiences, with the aim of measuring the human impact on the oceans and contributing to the discussion on the place of man in the sea. He also highlighted that the expedition is financed through the Fondation Pacifique, a non-profit organization based in Geneva, in addition to other initiatives such as hosting young women on the sailboat for several weeks for their learning and environmental education, ordinary passengers or professional illustrators.
Yaiza Santana, a former student at the Faculty of Marine Sciences of the University of Vigo and scientific coordinator of the project, explained the different programs carried out by the expedition. Among them, the multiple cartographies carried out on microplastic pollution and noise pollution of the oceans, the monitoring of greenhouse gases on the surface, and the observation of the health status of coral reefs stand out. Yaiza emphasized the environmental awareness campaigns carried out in places such as Papua New Guinea or Cape Town, and the cultural exchange carried out by the members of the expedition in which they not only tried to transmit their knowledge, but also received and learned from all cultures.
For his part, Jesús Gago, a researcher at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, gave a presentation on the seriousness of the increase in microplastics in the oceans and the importance of raising awareness and reducing the consumption of plastics, highlighting the role played by this expedition. José González, head of the Oceanography Unit of the ECIMAT of the Marine Research Center of the University of Vigo (CIM-UVigo), highlighted the work of CIM-UVigo researchers in this area, such as that carried out by Ricardo Beiras on the impact of microplastics on the marine food chain.
In the afternoon, around 20 people attended the visit on board the Fleur de Passion sailboat at the Monte Real Yacht Club in Baiona, where they were able to see how the different research instruments they use work, and what day-to-day life is like on board the sailboat. Among the attendees we could see the Mayor of Baiona, the President of the Monte Real Yacht Club and other representatives of the scientific community. The Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Marine Sciences and researcher at CIM-UVigo, Elsa Vázquez Otero, was also present at both the talk and the visit, and she opened the doors to future collaborations both for exchange programs with students and with the researchers of the Vigo entity itself.
Among the results of the unprecedented monitoring carried out by these researchers, carried out in collaboration with the F.-A. Forel Department of the University of Geneva, is that the Indian Ocean could constitute a significant reservoir of atmospheric methane. This data reaffirms the urgent need for reference field data to reassess the role that the oceans play in the carbon cycle and in the general context of climate change.
This expedition was pioneering in its reach and surveillance around the world and we hope it continues to work and educate with future programs that we would love to be a part of.
You can see some of the cartographies resulting from their studies and learn more about their project on their website: www.omexpedition.com
Source: Campus do Mar
