Start of the Joint Black Sea surveys -2 in the Open Sea “Further discovery of the Black Sea: deeper, closer and more in detail”

On 28 August 2017, press-conference devoted to the start of an ecological survey carried out by the EU/UNDP project “Improving Environmental Monitoring in the Black Sea” (EMBLAS-II) was conducted in Odesa under the leadership of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine.

Joint Black Sea surveys is a scientific field study of the state of the Black Sea, including in its open part, done using the novel methods and equipment of the European Union, conducted at the biggest research vessel of EU “Mare Nigrum”. See presentation bellow.

This is the second survey; the first one was conducted last year (see here the results). The vessel started its open sea surveys in Odesa, Ukraine on 28^th of August right after the press-conference and finish in Batumi, Georgia, taking samples of water, marine life and sediments including at 2km depth on its way.

The press-conference provided journalists, NGOs and wide public with the following:

• Overview of marine environmental policy development at national level and globally done by MENR and UNDP-Ukraine;
• New methods of Black Sea surveys (like environmental DNA traces, further development of the Black sea priority substances).
• New results of the study of the underwater life in phyllophora fields (see the video)
• Distribution and number of the alive and dead dolphins in the Sea.

A special topic of the press-conference was marine litter and their investigation, kindly covered by the EC Joint Research center.

As a part of the public involvement into environmental monitoring, the official awarding procedure of the winner in the mobile application Black Sea SaveBook in Ukraine, which is National Nature park “Tuzlivski Lymans” was conducted.

Prior the  excursion to the marine research vessel “Mare Nigrum”, the kids from the technical studio “Vynakhidnyk” presented their own marine research vessel device to protect marine life.

In total more than 80 participants took part in the event. The event was highly covered in media (see below the 58 links).

Press overview

Ukraine, Odessa press-conference (28 August 2017)