Interested in South Georgia
The South Georgia Association’s April 2021 Newsletter has been published. Attached are the 2021 audited accounts summary and a cut-out-and-make model of the RRS James Clark Ross, which features in the Newsletter.
Members’ copies will be in the post soon and we will send you an email link for the digital version.
Older issues are free for anybody to download from the newsletters page of this website. (Now including last April’s Newsletter)
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Birdlife International held a webinar on 11 March 2021 to highlight their work to protect the high seas. In particular, do look out for the work they are doing to protect the albatrosses that breed on South Georgia. One of the speakers is Stephanie Prince, who spent time as a biologist at both Bird Island and King Edward Point, and is now High Seas Programme Manager at Birdlife International. The South Georgia Association’s Initiative Fund has recently contributed to their work in the Far East, engaging with Japanese fishers to try and reduce seabird mortality in their fishery.
See the webinar directly on YouTube or on our own YouTube Channel’s ‘Other People’s Clips‘ playlist and go on to spend the rest of the day browsing that!
The South Georgia Heritage Trust and the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust are holding a joint talk at 1900-2100 GMT on Wednesday March 3 2021. Three of the world’s experts in the study and conservation of whales in the Southern Ocean will discuss the history, science and current efforts to conserve these important species on our planet. The speakers are:
And the event is free, though donations to the two charities would be welcome.
An online talk on Shackleton has been organised by the Gilbert White and Oates Collection. Shackleton’s Endurance Adventure – revisited will be presented on 4 March at 1900 GMT by John Dudeney OBE and costs £5.
“This talk provides a new historical perspective on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s amazing adventure in the Weddell Sea – of brave hopes, hopes dashed, shipwreck and castaway, and ultimate survival. But in doing so, it will draw on previously unknown information from a century ago held in the UK National Archives which was recently uncovered by the speaker and his co-workers. The documents so discovered throw a rather different light the behaviour of both Shackleton and the British Government than the popular accounts provide. This is particularly the case concerning the attempts to find out what had happened to Shackleton and his men, and then, when he reappeared in the Falklands, to rescue the castaways on Elephant Island. It will also bring the “forgotten” men of the Ross Sea party into the limelight.”
The Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands GSGSSI) has just published a new strategy for managing the island over the next five years.
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A grant has been awarded to assist this project by the use of social media to raise awareness of the impact of fisheries bycatch on South Georgian albatrosses. It aims to conduct public outreach in Japan and put pressure on government, tuna and other fisheries stakeholders to take action to reduce albatross bycatch.
…SGA Initiative Fund Award to RSPB for Educational Work in JapanRead More »
Robert Burton wrote this article on how the Fur seals were hunted, processed for their fur, and what this was used for.
To alleviate lockdown boredom, SGA Chairman David Drewry has written a short story about the sealing vessel Dias.
…South to the Ice! – A Short Story by David DrewryRead More »
