Belgium is standing for re-election to the Council of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in category C. This United Nations organisation is committed to safe and sustainable international shipping. Our country has been a member of the IMO since 1951 and is proud to have contributed to the development of the maritime industry with other countries.
To support our candidature for the IMO Council of 2021, DG Shipping is pleased to share a video presenting Belgium as a maritime nation and highlighting the key points of our motto: “Be sustainable, be safe, be together, be Belgium”.
The promotional video also covers scientific research, monitoring of the marine environment and monitoring of compliance with international rules on air pollution from ships. The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (KBIN) contributed to the video and provided images. The support of the Management Unit of the Mathematical Model of the North Sea (MUMM), and in particular of the airborne surveillance team of MUMM, as well as of scientific divers and various other RBINS teams was indispensable.
In its candidature, Belgium emphasises the following points, among others:
promoting inclusive governance
managing an increasingly complex maritime space and a wide variety of actors
innovating for a sustainable maritime sector
implementing IMO regulations and protecting seafarers
strengthening the maritime cluster
Vincent Van Quickenborne, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the North Sea: “Shipping is of great importance to our economy. At the same time, we are strongly committed to the protection of the seas and oceans. In this way, our country plays a leading role at an international level in reducing emissions. Our North Sea is itself part of an ECA (Emission Control Area) in which we use our sniffer aircraft to strictly monitor emissions of nitrogen, sulphur and, this year, black carbon. Our ambition is to reduce CO₂ emissions by 55% by 2030 and achieve zero emissions by 2050. That is why it is important for us to remain in the cockpit of the IMO. In this way, we can make a real difference in the development of a sustainable maritime policy.”
Peter Claeyssens, Director General of Directorate General Shipping:“The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) sets the rules for a safe navigation and the protection of our seas and oceans. As a prominent maritime nation, Belgium is strongly committed to safe and environmentally friendly shipping. This is why Belgium wants to be at the wheel of this organisation to make a difference in the ongoing development of a sustainable maritime mobility worldwide.”
The elections will take place in London during the 32nd ordinary session of the Assembly, which will be held from 6 to 15 December 2021.
More information on the IMO Council and the Belgian candidature is available here.
On 13 September 2021, the agreement was signed for the transfer of the legendary research vessel Belgica from the Belgian to the Ukrainian authorities. A few days later, the ship will start her journey to her new home base in Odessa. During this transit, several scientific samples will be taken. In the Black Sea, the ship will continue to do what she does best: carry out scientific research and monitor the state of health of the sea. On this basis, measures can be defined that should lead to the ecological recovery of the Black Sea.
On Monday 13 September 2021, Mr. Thomas Dermine, State Secretary for Economic Recovery and Strategic Investments, in charge of Science Policy, Mr. Roman Abramovskyy, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, and Mr. Viktor Komorin, Director of the Ukrainian Scientific Centre of the Ecology of the Sea, signed the agreement for the transfer of the research vessel Belgica from the Kingdom of Belgium to Ukraine. This followed a Memorandum of Understanding signed in July 2021 between the Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO), the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine.
State Secretary Thomas Dermine: “After more than one million kilometres travelled and more than 1,000 scientific campaigns to increase knowledge of the seas, Belgium bids farewell to the research vessel Belgica today. As a sailing laboratory, the ship was the flagship of Belgian marine science for 37 years. It is with pain in our hearts that we say goodbye, but I am very happy that the ship will have a second life thanks to our cooperation with the Ukrainian Scientific Centre of the Ecology of the Sea“.
The importance of a performant national research vessel cannot be underlined enough. As a multidisciplinary research vessel, the RV Belgica was able to support scientific research in the fields of fisheries, biology, geology, climate and chemistry, and Belgium was able to punch above its weight class in terms of marine research and monitoring, marine spatial planning and blue economy. And that both at a national level and in an international context. The ship also gave thousands of students the opportunity to gain their first sea experience. Many of them acquired a taste for it to such an extent that they remained active in the various STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) sectors, often rising to managerial positions.
Vincent Van Quickenborne, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the North Sea: “The Belgica is an icon in the research world and has been of inestimable value for North Sea policy. Among other things, she was responsible for monitoring the effects of sand extraction, wind farms and the munitions dump on the Paardenmarkt. Her field of work was also much broader than our North Sea. For example, she discovered cold water coral mounds beyond Ireland and mud volcanoes off the coast of Morocco. With the new Belgica, there will be a worthy successor to continue the work of the ‘old white lady’.”
After 37 years of active service, the RV Belgica completed her last campaign as a Belgian oceanographic research vessel on 25 March 2021. Although Belgium will welcome a new state-of-the-art Belgica in the late autumn of 2021, the farewell of the ‘old white lady’ is tough.
On 16 September, the RV Belgica will leave her traditional berth in the Zeebrugge naval base and become officially Ukrainian property. Ukraine did not have an operational ship suitable for oceanographic research in recent times but has great ambitions in this field. From now on, the Belgica will strengthen the monitoring of the marine environment in the Black Sea region, and thus will be of great importance for the implementation of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive, which is part of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. Moreover, in the longer term, monitoring will contribute to the establishment of an evidence-based programme of measures and thus to the restoration of the state of the Black Sea. As a follow-up, joint Belgo-Ukrainian surveys are also planned in both the Black Sea and the North-East Atlantic.
On the Ukrainian side, Minister Abramovskyy said: “We are very grateful to the Belgian Party for such an important gift to Ukraine. With the help of the research vessel Belgica, we plan to resume monitoring in the open waters of the Black Sea as early as this year.“
In the coming days, the ship will start her journey from Zeebrugge to her new Ukrainian home port Odessa. During the 8 600 km voyage, Ukrainian scientists will be active right away. They will collect seawater and bottom sediment samples for analysis of a wide range of pollutants, document floating marine debris and microplastics, take environmental DNA samples for biodiversity assessment and analyse microbial DNA to reveal the presence of antibiotic resistance genes. This ambitious scientific programme, entitled “Cruise of Three European Seas” (North East Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Sea), as well as the transfer of the vessel, is organised and funded by the EU/UNDP project “European Union for Improving Environmental Monitoring of the Black Sea” (EU4EMBLAS), and scientifically supported by the EU Joint Research Centre.
Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder: “For 37 years, Defence deployed the Belgica in the service of scientific research at sea. The ship is now being transferred to Ukraine to start a second career as a scientific research vessel. I am pleased to know that the Belgica – albeit under a different name – is heading for new scientific assignments. We expect the successor to arrive in Belgium shortly and we will continue our good cooperation with the Federal Science Policy and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.”
The Belgica is expected to arrive in Ukraine in mid-October 2021. There, the ship will be renamed, and then begin her operations in the Black Sea region.
Migration is a crucial phase in the annual cycle of wild birds.
In some cases migration is innate, in others it is learned. But it is always a question of successfully joining one area to another, sometimes, often, thousands of kilometres away.
The journey requires remarkable abilities in terms of orientation, reaction to weather conditions, choice and availability of stopover places. The ability to feed efficiently during stopovers in order to replenish the energy reserves used during the first leg so as to be able to cover the next, and so on, is also crucial.
The phenology – the timing – of migration is an essential parameter in successful migration. The bird must leave in time to reach its destination site at the right moment, taking into account the stages to be covered and the food resources available from the beginning to the end of the journey. In the case of insectivorous passerines, these resources are essentially a function of the annual cycle, which in turn depends on the local weather.
Some species/populations consistently adapt their migration timing. Others seem to be “set” on a genetically predetermined schedule.
But what happens when the weather conditions are peculiar, when the climatic situation changes rapidly? To what extent do different bird species react appropriately? And if some do not, to what extent does this influence the evolution of their populations in terms of abundance and distribution?
By studying the migration phenology of different bird species ringed in Belgium during migration, we wish to contribute to this evaluation.
This first presentation of results compiles, in three-day periods, the ringing data collected throughout Belgium over the last 10 years. The results are expressed as a percentage of the total number of birds, from the species concerned, ringed during the reference period. The sample size (“n”) is presented next to each graph. These data are particularly robust considering the sample sizes in relation to the high density of their harvest – the land area of Belgium being ‘only’ 30,528 km².
The inter-annual variation in peak abundance will be presented in a second step.
Thanks to all the RBINS ringers who contributed to the collection of these data and to Paul Vandenbulcke who wrote papageno, the software for encoding these data.
In the morning of 12 August 2021, a grey seal, known to beach visitors as “Oscar”, was found dead on the beach of Wenduine. The post-mortem examination, carried out by staff from the University of Liège, in collaboration with Ghent University and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, confirmed what was already suspected: Oscar succumbed to the effects of his advanced age. This could be deduced from the empty digestive system, the badly worn teeth and the severe signs of emaciation, which eventually led to general organ failure.
For those who followed the national media on 12 and 13 August, there was no escape: from now on, the iconic seal Oscar will no longer be seen on our beaches. Oscar, an adult male grey seal, was found dead on the beach of Wenduine (municipality of De Haan) in the morning of 12 August 2021. Since 2019 he had been regularly found on the Belgian and northern French beaches, where he has become a familiar sight to many beach visitors and nature lovers. Recently, he even enjoyed national public attention and became known as a mascot of the Belgian coast. However, from the beginning of his Belgian adventure, it was clear that Oscar was an old animal. He looked rather thin and often lay passively for long periods on the beach, which gave the impression to many that he had health problems. However, his appearance and behaviour were well-suited to an old animal, and there was no need for human intervention. So it was expected for some time that his end was not far off.
Oscar’s carcass was collected immediately after the discovery by staff of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), which since the early 1990s has been coordinating research on the health status and causes of death of wild marine mammals in Belgium. A post-mortem examination was immediately organised by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (Department of Morphology and Pathology) of the University of Liège, in collaboration with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Ghent University and the RBINS.
The investigation confirmed what was already suspected: Oscar died a natural death from the effects of old age; his body was exhausted. The autopsy revealed the following aspects:
the digestive system was completely empty, so the animal had not been able to get any food for some time
the teeth did not help any more either: many teeth were missing and the remaining teeth were very worn down
severe emaciation (skin and bones): no fat tissue was found and most of the muscle tissue had also disappeared (atrophied)
its weight was barely 100.1 kg, whereas for a male grey seal measuring 2 m in length, a ‘healthy’ weight of 170 to 200 kg would be expected (note that Oscar, at 2 m, was a rather small adult grey seal; some males grow up to 2.5 m in length)
the weakening caused by emaciation eventually led to general organ and heart failure
some tumours have yet to be diagnosed, but are not expected to be directly responsible for the death
Oscar reached an estimated age of 20 years or more (the exact age is difficult to determine), which is respectable for a male grey seal. Females are known to live up to 35 years, but males tend to live shorter, possibly because they put a lot of strain on their bodies during the mating season, when they try to gain the favour of females (including fights with other males).
Oscar’s skeleton will be prepared to be used for educational purposes, but its final destination has not yet been decided.
Reporting marine mammals: when, where, how?
To report sightings of marine mammals at sea, please contact the RBINS at dolfin@naturalsciences.be. Dead or stranded animals or animals caught in professional or recreational fishing nets (dead or alive) can best be reported ad hoc (by phone), directly to the RBINS or indirectly through a local authority or general emergency number. Healthy live seals on the beach can be reported to the NorthSealTeam who can call on many volunteers to monitor the situation locally to avoid disturbance. For seals in distress contact SeaLife. A harbour porpoise or dolphin on the beach is always in trouble: releasing the animal into the sea on the spot is usually not an option. In such cases it is best to contact a general emergency number.
On 4 August 1945 an American military aircraft flew the entire length of our country’s coastline from Knokke to De Panne. From the air a photographer took more than 80 photographs that produce a unique insight into how the coast of West Flanders looked just after the Second World War. The photos had been neatly stored in the US national archives, and were recently accidentally discovered by some archaeologists of Ghent University who were looking for photos on which they could see remnants of the war.
These photos are not only interesting because of their historical value, but also allow a comparison with the current state of our coast. If only there were a similar series of recent images …
RBINS to the rescue!
On Tuesday 14 April 2020, at low tide, the RBINS aerial survey team flew the same trajectory along the entire Belgian coastline using the RBINS aircraft OO-MMM, taking unique images of empty beaches during the first Covid lockdown.
The press loved it, and on 4 August 2021, 76 years after the American flight of 1945, the Flemish Radio and Television Broadcasting Association (Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie – VRT) put two and two together and compared the two image series, revealing both amazing similarities and remarkable differences.
