From the "Dark Side" of Aarhus Space Centre
Join SpaCe Communications Manager Ole J. Knudsen on a journey through recent outreach events in Denmark and beyond, highlighting light pollution, biodiversity, and the growing efforts to protect the night sky.
As some of you may know, SpaCe is amongst other things supporting the work for protecting the Night Sky against light pollution. We have founded the Dansk Dark Sky Konsortium to act as a contact node between local citicens groups, NGOs, companies and others interested in supporting these efforts.
As part of the outreach efforts connected to this, I have been participating in some interesting events during this May and June, and in August I will attend a couple of meetings and events in Brest, France joining one of the EU-supported groups working along these lines - the Interim Wadden Sea Darker Sky collaboration.
On May 27. SpaCe, represented by me, was invited by Port Esbjerg to give a speech on Ports as Neighbours to the Wadden Sea World Heritage and the following panel debate. This took place as a side event during the Trilateral Ministerial Conference on the Wadden Sea in Esbjerg. This conference takes place every 4 years in one of the Wadden Sea countries Germany, The Netherlands or Denmark, usually with the ministers responsible for the environment present, but due to the lack of a formal government in Denmark at the time, no ministers were present. At the side event, gathering some 60 participants there was a high interest in the subject of protecting the darkness at night for environmental reasons, and as usual, when you present this subject to an audience, the ignorance and surprise of the subject was huge, but on the other hand it was an obvious eye opener to many of the participants.
Shortly after this, on Friday May 29. I was invited to present the same subject on two occasions during the Naturmødet in Hirtshals. In the morning the NGO Danmarks Vilde Natur opened a 45 min time slot in their presentation tent for my lecture, and in the afternoon another NGO, Vild Med Vilje invited me to share the floor with Lisa Dam Trapp and Mikkel Stener Møller, both from the consulting company NIRAS, talking on various aspects of the effects from Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) on biodiversity, people and the stars. Both events had some 30-50 listeners and some quite interesting questions came up.
At Folkemødet in Allinge, Bornholm June 11. and 12. I was invited by the group Dark Sky Langeland to give two very short introductions to our work in SpaCe on the night sky together with a representative from Langelands Kommune and from Dark Sky Langeland. In Folkets Debattelt some 20 people participated and the day after, in Friluftsrådets Bålscene 40 people dropped in.
At all these events it is obvious that only very few people, even if they are interested in protection of the environment from various angles, have thought of light pollution as an issue - but this is slowly changing. At SpaCe we will continue informing of the subjects, supporting the citicen groups and provide advice to those who request this.
If you wish to join Dansk Dark Sky Konsortium it will only cost you a signature on our charter. Please contact me at ojk@phys.au.dk.
- Ole J. Knudsen, Communications Manager, Aarhus Space Centre