{"id":844,"date":"2025-05-28T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/?p=844"},"modified":"2025-05-27T18:19:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T16:19:39","slug":"svalbard-islands-expedition-at-risk-polar-bear-seals-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/svalbard-islands-expedition-at-risk-polar-bear-seals-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"EXPEDITION TO SVALBARD: POLAR BEARS, SEALS, AND MANY MORE AT RISK"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The first phase of the winter expedition to Svalbard <\/strong>has been successfully completed; Imbalplast has also contributed to sponsor it, together with WWF Italy<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the coldest period of the year, with temperatures reaching -45\u00b0C<\/strong>, natural photographer Alessandro Seletti <\/em><\/strong>has documented the effect of climate change on the ices and the fauna of this uncontaminated place, travelling on a snowmobile in the hinterland and on an icebreaker through the fjords.<\/p>\n\n\n

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This adventure challenged Alessandro\u2019<\/em><\/strong>s physical strength and resistance, but that was compensated by his great passion for the divulgation of the main environmental phenomena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second phase of the expedition<\/strong> \u2013 which will be recounted in September \u2013 is going to take place in summer and it will offer a full picture on the state of the art. Recent studies have demonstrated that the Arctic is heating twice as fast than the rest of the Planet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The survival of the fauna \u2013 notably the polar bear and the seal <\/strong>\u2013 is already widely compromised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alessandro gathered the testimonies of some of the inhabitants of Longyearbyen<\/strong>, who confirmed that, in the last decade, the glaciers have suffered a considerable reduction and that, every year, the sea ice is present for a more and more limited span of time.<\/p>\n\n\n

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We have to keep in mind that those glaciers play a fundamental role in the life of seals.<\/strong> Without the sea ice, polar bears cannot hunt their favourite preys and they are forced to wander in the mainland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last years, people have observed bears hunting reindeers and eating seabirds\u2019 eggs, thus leading to consequences still under study process.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are inclined to think that what is happening in a faraway and isolated land should not have consequences on the rest of the Planet. Actually, climate change is not only endangering the fauna, but also the survival of human beings<\/strong>. Svalbard islands host the \u201cGlobal Seed Vault\u201d<\/em><\/strong>: it is the storage of thousands of seeds from all over the world; it was instituted in 2008 to preserve a wide variety of crops for cultivation. It is a sort of Noah\u2019s Ark of plants<\/strong>; it contains the copies of seeds guarded in 89 genetic banks <\/strong>all around the world. (These banks could be vulnerable because of possible natural disasters, wars of structures\u2019 malfunctions.) This is a real backup and it has been realised to give us a safer future.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Short biography of Alessandro Seletti: <\/strong>from Montecchio in Emilia region, he has always loved wild animals and uncontaminated landscapes of Northern Europe; he is also author of photographic books, exhibitions, and videos of great emotional impact. Since 2000, he has created a large net of cooperation with magazines, museums, and organisations, such as National Geographic<\/em>.<\/strong> Some of his photos also reached the final stage of one of the most prestigious photo contest: the Wildlife Photographer of the Year<\/em>, held in London.By the end of this year, the expedition to Svalbard will be extensively documented in a book. https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/alessandroseletti\/.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first phase of the winter expedition to Svalbard has been successfully completed; Imbalplast has also contributed to sponsor it, together with WWF Italy. In the coldest period of the year, with temperatures reaching -45\u00b0C, natural photographer Alessandro Seletti has documented the effect of climate change on the ices and the fauna of this uncontaminated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[146,178,38,149,177,145,179],"class_list":["post-844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-non-categorizzato","tag-alessandroseletti-en","tag-foche-en","tag-imbalplast-en","tag-isolesvalbard-en","tag-orsopolar","tag-throwingthroats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":849,"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844\/revisions\/849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imbalplast.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}