The Komandorsky Islands National Park in Kamchatka is concerned about the growing volume of plastic waste and its harmful effects on nature. Research is regularly carried out on this largest marine specially protected natural area of Russia in the Pacific Ocean to solve this problem. For example, an expedition has recently started to the uninhabited Medny Island, including to assess the level of its plastic pollution. This is stated in a message on the website of the Center for the Protection of Wildlife of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia.
"The ever-increasing number of marine animals that die from plastic, the exponentially increasing amount of 'sea garbage', changes in the number of individual species - all this suggests that in the coming years humanity will face biospheric challenges of an unprecedented scale - challenges that humanity has yet to realize and with which we will have to cope in order to survive," - the words of the director of the Komandorsky Islands National Park Anastasia Kuznetsova are quoted in the message.
She noted that plastic is now literally everywhere - in water, in food, in marine animals, in ourselves. According to the expert, research on plastic, its volumes and structure, as well as its impact on marine ecosystems is extremely important, since humanity has not fully realized the consequences of such pollution.
"I am afraid that a real plastic war awaits us, and I really hope that humanity will have enough wisdom and knowledge to win," Kuznetsova said.
According to her, the Komandorsky Islands National Park, with the support of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia, will continue research on marine ecosystems and will do everything possible to reduce the amount of plastic in our lives.
The national park constantly implements a whole range of scientific research in cooperation with many institutions, including the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Kamchatka Branch of the Pacific Institute of Geography of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the A.M. Zhirmunsky National Research Center of Marine Biology and others.
"Every year, year-round observations of marine mammals are carried out, studies of the ecology of marine mammals (including the sea otter's food base), counts of the number of marine birds, collection of data on zoobenthos and the state of marine surface waters (salinity, temperature, etc.) carried out. In recent years, the park staff has carried out a large amount of work on monitoring the spatial distribution of brown seaweed fields," - the Center for the Protection of Wildlife reported.
In addition, the accounting of marine debris, its quantity and structure is a priority.
So, in May, park staff went on an expedition to the uninhabited Medny Island, which will last until September 3. The participants will have to solve more than 50 tasks. In addition to scientific research, they will carry out security measures, patrolling, assess the current state of historical and cultural sites and the level of plastic pollution on Medny Island. Specialists will also prepare proposals for the restoration of disturbed natural and historical and cultural sites.
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