Dear Local Guides,
I would like to share with you my experience of attending a regional environmental event during the Black Sea Day in Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
Especially it was exciting to me, because I was involved in this event not as a scientist and researcher. This time I was invited as a Local Guide, the Connect Live 2018 Summit alumni and had a great opportunity to share about Local Guides Program and amazing Global Local Guides initiative Local Guides Clean The Worldproject by @ErmesT .
The environmental sustainability of the Black Sea is vitally important for the whole surrounding region and, in general, for the Earth’s ecosystem.
The Black Sea is the inland sea of ​​the Atlantic Ocean basin. The major rivers, such as the Danube, Dnipro, Southern Bug, Rioni and a number of small rivers supply the Black Sea. The area of ​​the Black Sea is about 430 thousand square kilometers. It’s home to more than 2.5 thousand species of animals and fish. The flora is represented by more than 270 species of multicellular algae and at least 600 species of phytoplankton.
The Black sea is bordered by Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Russia and being affected by strong anthropogenic impact. It therefore the Black Sea basin has a wide range of environmental issues:
- pollution by hazardous chemicals,
- plastic pollution,
- anoxic zones,
- overfishing,
- invasive species.
And speaking of plastic pollution, the most part of marine litter is plastic packaging - 83% of bottles, plastic bags, candy wrappers. According to studies carried out in Ukraine on the Danube and the Dniester, the major rivers carry to the Black sea from 6 to 50 items of litters per hour. Microplastics found in sediment both on the shelf and at a depth more than 2 thousand meters. Pieces of plastic from 2.5 centimeters to several microns very easily migrate along the food chains and have a negative physiological effect on animals (Research data by EMBLAS).
The Black Sea Day was started in 1996, when the six Black Sea Coastal states (Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, the Russia, Turkey and Ukraine) signed the Strategic Action Plan for the Environmental Protection and Rehabilitation of the Black Sea to act in concert to assist in the continued recovery of the Black Sea.
The main theme of this day is the Black Sea environment and its protection. On this day, there are activities to inform the general public about the environmental problems, the current ecological status and actions to improve it.
So, scientists, ecologists, local authorities, environmental volunteers, civil society activists, teacher and students gathered in the Mykolaiv regional universal scientific library on 12 October 2019. The attendees discussed the results of modern maritime research of the environmental state of the Black Sea about the global chemical pollutants, the effect of climate change and new invasive species, learned about modern research tools of the environmental health of the sea, summarized results of the EU/UNDP project the Environmental Monitoring in the Black Sea (EMBLAS-Plus).
The EMBLAS-Plus project aims to recover the Black Sea environmental sustainability. It’s focused on marine data collection and activities targeted at reduction of marine litter, education and public awareness creating.
Traditionally most of events of the Black Sea Day were concentrated in Odesa and Kyiv. Indeed, it was really exciting to attend such event in my home city Mykolaiv - the coastal city of the Black Sea on the South of Ukraine.
During the Black Sea Day I had a great opportunity to share a presentation What is the Local Guides Program, my experience as a Local Guide and amazing initiative of plastic pollution control Local Guides Clean The World __project__launched by @ErmesT in 2018 and nowadays covered the whole World. I gave detailed description of the CTW project 5 Steps: 1-Education, 2-Documentation, 3-Actions, 4-Publication and 5-Best Practice. Each step I illustrated with amazing examples of Local Guides activities in this field.
I answered questions about Mymaps of plastic pollutionby @DavidTito which clearly demonstrates a global scale of the Local Guides Clean The Worlds initiative. Listeners were impressed by enthusiasms of Local Guides, who are supporting CTW project actively @KarenVChin @IlankovanT @KashifMisidia @OmerAli @Cecilita @ShafiulB @AnaLuciaWine @Hannah_Ishola and the others.
It was valuable experience of knowledge exchange, establishing connection and planning with scientists, ecologists, volunteers, civil society activists in the field of environmental protection of the Black Sea.
Thank you,
Jane
Local Guide from Ukraine
for that 
