Høst 2023

FSK-8010 Marine litter and Arctic fisheries: Challenges and solutions - 10 stp

The course is administrated by

Norges fiskerihøgskole

Type of course

PhD-course. The course can be taken as a singular course. Theoretical and field work. Field work is compulsory.

Course contents

The course will be focused at Arctic fisheries and the impact from marine litter and possible methods to mitigate problems related to pollution of important fishing grounds. Loss of plastics, including modern fishing gears, is a global problem and causes challenges like ghost fisheries and unaccounted mortality. It is estimated that the loss of potential harvest from commercially important fish counts billions of euros annually. Students will be given firsthand knowledge on how fishing gears are built from various materials and introduced to methods to record, measure and mitigate marine litter during theoretical training and field-work. This course will be linked to the UArctic network and focus primarily on circumpolar issues, including circularity and governance initiatives to introduce alternative materials in fisheries and aquaculture.

Admission requirements

Application code: 9301

UiT PhD students who wants to take a course that is not approved in their instruction component.
PhD student enrolled at another institution than UiT.
Applicants who have completed a MSc degree.

The course has limited admission. Minimum number of seats is 7. Number of seats is maksimum 20.

PhD students or holders of a Norwegian master´s degree of five years or 3+2 years (or equivalent) may be admitted. PhD students must upload a document from their university stating that there are registered PhD students. This group of applicants does not have to prove English proficiency and are exempt from semester fee.

Holders of a Master´s degree must upload a Master´s Diploma with Diploma Supplement / English translation of the diploma. Applicants from listed countries must document proficiency in English. To find out if this applies to you see the following list:

Proficiency in English must be documented - list of countries

For more information on accepted English proficiency tests and scores, as well as exemptions from the English proficiency tests, please see the following document:

Proficiency in English - PhD level studies

Please contact Ingjerd Gauslaa Nilsen at the BFE-faculty if you have troubles or questions regarding registration to the course.

Objective of the course

Students who have completed this course will be able to:

Knowledge:

Describe the basic fishing methods applied in Arctic fisheries.
Understand the economic importance of key species and the main principles of fisheries management.
Understand how and why marine litter occur in the Arctic regions.
Know the sources and to which extent fisheries has a share of marine litter.
Understand the properties and difference between bioplastics, bio-degradable plastics and non-degradable (fossil-fuel based) plastics.
Know methods and programs to mitigate marine litter.
Understand how marine litter impact indigenous communities.
Know principles for the circularity of various types of plastics.
Understand how governance incentives can be used to increase the use of biodegradable materials

Skills:

Be able to describe and debate the challenges by marine litter in the Arctic fisheries.
Read scientific publications critically.
Write a field report.
Be able to explain, teach and implement marine litter analyses.
Implement relevant study designs in issues related to marine litter.
Write a scientific essay.

General competence:

Be able to demonstrate a holistic understanding of challenges created by marine litter in Arctic environments.
Be able to utilize scientific literature to identify information needed to understand, interpret and critically evaluate data from experiments addressing marine litter and use of various plastics in fisheries and aquaculture.
Be able to describe how non-degradable (fossil-fuel based) plastics can be replaced by bio-degradable plastics (and bioplastics) in future fisheries and aquaculture.
Be able to demonstrate an understanding of legal, regulatory, and ethical considerations relating to marine litter within the broader societal context.
Be able to improve their scientific writing skills
Be able to communicate knowledge on relevant science in a clear and concise way on challenges related to marine litter in the circumpolar arctic areas.

Language of instruction

English

Teaching methods

32 h lectures, 3 x 8 h seminars and 4 days field work