From Nairobi to Ruka

Björn Alfthan, Joan Fabres & Jan Dusik

By GRID-Arendal

March 21^st, 2019

We would like to dedicate this article to Sarah Auffret, environmental agent of the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO). On Sunday, March 10, 2019, Sarah was on her way to Nairobi to attend the UN Environment Assembly. Her Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed soon after take-off from Addis Ababa with no survivors. Sarah touched the lives of hundreds of people and inspired people around her to make a difference. She led AECO’s efforts to drastically cut back on single-use plastics on Arctic expedition cruise vessels, as well as enhance cruise passengers’ involvement in regular beach cleanups. Sarah was part of the expert group that participated in the workshop organised by the *Protection of Arctic Marine Environment (PAME) Working Group of the Arctic Council*** last June in Akureyri to review the “Desktop Study on Marine Litter including Microplastics in the Arctic” that was presented in Nairobi as described below. Sarah would have certainly attended this event.

Last week, the world's Environment Ministers met close to the equator in the sunny African city of Nairobi, Kenya, for the Fourth session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-4).

The Flipflopi, a dhow or traditional sailing vessel on display at UNEA-4. Built with over 10 tonnes of plastic waste and 30,000 re-purposed flipflops, it was part of an awareness raising project prior to the Assembly. Credit: Björn Alfthan/GRID-Arendal.

At the same time, high up north in the Arctic town of Ruka, Finland, the Arctic Council’s Senior Arctic Officials met to prepare for the Ministerial meeting in Rovaniemi in May, and to review projects and approve the deliverables from the subsidiary bodies of the Arctic Council that will be presented in Rovaniemi.

What links these seemingly unrelated meetings is the issue of marine litter and how to reduce it.

The topic of marine litter has received significant attention and discussion at UNEA-4. It was the focus of one resolution and was also highlighted in the Ministerial Declaration that was approved at the end of the meeting. Throughout the week, the marine litter community gathered at the Clean Seas Tent for a series of discussions, including about the global governance architecture for marine litter and developing standardised monitoring approaches to measure the effectiveness of proposed interventions.

Marine litter in the Arctic was the focus of one side event hosted by UN Environment. The purpose of the event was to share current knowledge about and understanding of marine litter in the Arctic, and to learn from existing experiences in the development of regional action plans to combat marine litter.

From left to right, Karen Raubenheimer, (University of Wollongong, Australia), Gunvor G. Ericson (Sweden), Joan Fabres (GRID-Arendal) and Jan Dusik (UN Environment) speaking during the UNEA-4 event in Nairobi. Credit: Björn Alfthan/GRID-Arendal.

Joan Fabres (GRID-Arendal) presented the findings of the recently completed Desktop Study on Marine Litter including Microplastics in the Arctic on behalf of the Protection of Arctic Marine Environment (PAME) Working Group. He said:

“So far, the available evidence points to the fisheries sector within the Arctic being a major source of marine litter in the region. However, evidence also suggests that ocean currents can bring litter into the Arctic from both the North-East Atlantic, and Pacific Ocean. The potential input of plastic from rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean basin and its redistribution by sea ice also needs further attention.”

Map showing the combination of drivers, pathways and distribution of marine plastic pollution in the Arctic. From the report Global Linkages: A Graphic look at the Changing Arctic (UN Environment and GRID-Arendal 2019), launched at UNEA-4.

At the same event, Karen Raubenheimer (University of Wollongong, Australia), presented a global overview of the regional seas action plans on marine litter and the various ways in which these have been developed. She stated:

“When we examined the way regional sea action plans on marine litter were developed, we found a mix of top-down and bottom up approaches. The top-down approaches tend to be cheaper, but suffer from less ownership across governments and other stakeholders. On the other hand, bottom-up approaches, which sought broad stakeholder input across different sectors and communities, by default, are more costly to develop but have, of course, much broader support,”

The findings of her study provide insights on strengthening existing regional action plans and developing new action plans.

One of the potential future action plans on marine litter is for the Arctic region. The Arctic Council’s PAME Working Group is running the marine litter project, of which the Desktop Study on Marine Litter in the Arctic was the first step. The second, proposed step is the development of a more in-depth plan, which should chart the necessary steps and process to develop a marine litter regional action plan for the Arctic region.

At the meeting just concluded in Ruka, Finland, the Senior Arctic officials reviewed and approved the desktop study on marine litter for the Ministerial meeting in May this year.

Renée Sauvé , Chair of the PAME Working Group, presents the desktop study to the Senior Arctic Officials in Ruka, Finland. Credit: Peter Harris / GRID-Arendal.

Marine litter will be one of the priority topics during the Icelandic Chairmanship, which will start after the Ministerial meeting on 7 May 2019. An international symposium dedicated to the topic will be organized in Iceland in May 2020.

“Discussing Arctic marine litter in parallel in Nairobi and in Ruka demonstrates how important the global reflection of Arctic environmental matters is and where UN Environment can show its added value to Arctic cooperation,”