Oil and ice

Frida Bengtsson
On the evening of February 17th, the Icelandic containership Godafoss ran aground in the Hvaler national park in southern Norway and started leaking heavy oil. One of the biggest challenges of the cleanup operations has been to clean up oil from ice covered areas. This clearly illustrates that we can’t let the oil industry move into the Arctic.
I know that coastline well and I have been there with the Rainbow Warrior to document the unique cold-water coral reefs in the area. The same summer the Norwegian government decided to make the area a national park – the only one at sea. This national park is home to more than 6000 marine species - around 220of which are on the Norwegian national redlist of endangered and threatened species. Yesterday I visited the same area but on a coast guard ship struggling to get oil up from the ice.

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Oil and ice