When we ask ourselves to consider if we have been good stewards of our natural resources we must admit we have not always lived up to our potential.

When we look at the oceans these failures are manifest; 90% of the large fish have been fished to unsustainable levels. Our fishing fleets have scoured vast parts of the seabed and destroyed vital habitats and ecosystems, we are dumping an estimated eight million tons of plastic into the oceans every year creating enormous gyres of plastic waste, fish, birds and other marine animals are being choked and suffocated by this waste. No, we have to admit we have not done a good job.

There is, however, one area where it is not too late and where we have the chance to get it right – the deep sea.

To lay out the issues and suggest a responsible way forward the Gallifrey Foundation has produced in collaboration with the IUCN “Deep seabed mining – A rising environmental challenge”

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INFOGRAPHICS

Plastic has penetrated everyday life: from clothing to coatings and from transport vehicles to cleaning products. Plastic is cheap, durable, lightweight and malleable, resulting in a practically unlimited number of possible applications. The disadvantages of plastics however are becoming more and more visible. Large quantities of plastics leak into rivers and oceans, with adverse effects to marine ecosystems and related economic activities

Plastic wastes include all size residues, from large visible and easily removable items, to small invisible particles. This report investigates the sources of primary microplastics; i.e. microplastics that are directly released into the environment as small plastic particles (< 5 mm size). The Gallifrey Foundation has supported the research and production of this report.

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The majority of educational resources that explain the issue of plastic pollution are created in English and largely directed at children in developed countries.

To address this gap for children in the developing world, the Gallifrey Foundation engaged PCI Media Impact to create a new comic based on SDG Goal 14 – Life Below Water. Already produced in several languages including Hindi and Bahasa Indonesian and distributed via Ministries of Education this project is helping to raise the profile of this issue in national curricula and promote a sense of individual responsibility and encourage action to reduce marine debris. Behaviour change at a young age can instil habits and a sense of environmental citizenship for life.

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www.comicsunitingnations.org
If you are interested in printer-ready versions of the comics, please write to: info@mediaimpact.org Poseidon Patrol – SDG 14.

The greatest danger to the oceans is not pollution, acidification or overfishing but the ignorance and apathy that allows these incidents to occur in the first place. To promote a better understanding of the oceans’ importance, the Foundation commissioned Sea Fever – People and their Ocean Planet.

Written by the Foundation’s Advisor on Marine Programs, Dr. Luc Cuyvers, Sea Fever – People and their Ocean Planet examines how we have used (and sometimes abused) the ocean throughout the centuries.

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The Gallifrey Foundation has completed a pilot program entitled Plastic Free Campus, working with international schools to mobilise student action on single-use plastics consumption. This has involved closely working with our pilot schools to establish the best way to create change at four levels: in the curriculum, in the school community, in cross-campus and inter-school networks and in larger institutional bodies like the International Baccalaureate Organisation. The self-directed programme is now being prepared to be available online and to scale globally. Coming early 2019. Visit http://www.plasticfreecampus.org

The Gallifrey Foundation funded the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) research project. Establishing a Baseline on Marine Litter in the Azores – AZORLIT in collaboration with IMAR Center of the University of the Azores, the Observatory of the Azores (OMA and the Regional Directorate for Maritime Affairs (DGRAM).

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Download 2018 Follow-up Report

The Gallifrey Foundation has collaborated with IUCN Maldives to carry out a local Reef Guardian project, a community-oriented project to encourage sustainable reef behaviour. Working with the Maldivian Ministry of Education, changes to the national curriculum are being proposed in order to better institutionalize education on this topic and encourage youth-led action.

The Gallifrey Foundation has worked with Experience Jordan to develop plastic free hikes on the Jordan Trail. This has required rethinking how meals and water are sourced and delivered along this multi-day hike. Hikers have been encouraged to collect trash along the way.

As much as this may seem counter-intuitive, limiting plastic waste, even in the desert, makes sense because over the centuries as these materials break down into smaller and smaller pieces they will be flushed from the wadis and streams eventually into the sea. “Pick up a piece of litter in the desert and save a fish”.

By the middle of the century the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free for at least part of the year, confronting humanity with a dilemma:  exploit the Arctic Ocean the way we have exploited all of the ocean, or keep it untouched, the way it has been for thousands of years.

The Gallifrey Foundation is strongly committed to the second option: an option which would ensure we hand over at least one part of the ocean in the shape we received it.  To help the many organizations that share this goal become more effective, the Gallifrey Foundation supports programs that coordinate and maximize cooperation among them.  No single organization can protect the Arctic from development.  Only by all of us working together do we stand a chance of being heard.