This workshop will address this general questioning:
What are the legal obligations and responsibilities when it comes to conserving scientific samples and collections? How can the integrity of the scientific heritage be preserved? Should conservation be in situ or ex situ? How can the environment in which the samples are stored be protected from potential hazards ?
Questioning specific to Ice Memory:
Do ice cores constitute a potential danger for their conservation environment (particularly in Antarctica)? In line with the current trend towards in situ conservation, shouldn’t we consider hybrid conservation in Antarctica and in sampling sites (wherever possible)? Who is responsible for any deterioration of the samples or of the environment in which they are stored?
Director of the Natural History Museum of Grenoble, France
Rebecca Bilon, as Heritage Curator, is currently the Director of the Natural History Museum of Grenoble, a position she has held since November 2019. Previously, she served as the Curator of the Var Departmental Museum, managing museum operations and exhibitions in Toulon. She coordinated environmental research projects at the National Institute for Agronomic Research (Inra, now Inrae), focusing on invasive species and conducting biodiversity studies in Martinique.
With
Florian Aumond
Lecturer in public law at the University of Poitiers,
France
Florian Aumond is a lecturer in public law at the University of Poitiers. He specialises in international public law. His research focuses in particular on the law of the Antarctic Treaty System. He has published several articles on the subject, focusing in particular on issues of territorialisation and wildlife conservation. He coordinated a collective work on the « Terres australes et Antarctiques françaises ».
With
Joëlle Chiche
Scientific unit of Grenoble Natural History Museum, France
Joëlle Chiche has a background in genetics and evolution and a PhD in Biology. She is now responsible for the scientific unit of the Grenoble Natural History Museum, a team managing collections estimated at 1 to 3 million specimens and objects, a scientific library, and exotic botanical greenhouses.
Why join us?
Provide answers to practical questions about property and legal framework on scientific heritage raised in the field of glaciology. These concepts will be approached from the angles of international environmental and scientific law.
Who can participate?
Glaciologists, researchers conducting research abroad, science, environmental and international law researchers.
Our working method
These bi-monthly workshops will be organized from February to December 2024. The formula is based on 1 expert / 1h30. We will address two sets of questions, a general one and a more specific one relating to the Ice Memory heritage.
Since 2015, the Ice Memory Foundation aims to collect and preserve ice cores drilled from glaciers in danger of disappearing due to global warming. Safeguarding these ice cores is key to providing scientific advances and knowledge in the decades to come. Recognized and encouraged by UNESCO, this ice core heritage will be preserved for future generations in a dedicated sanctuary in Antarctica managed under international governance.
Constituting the Ice Memory heritage involves a number of original legal questions such as their long-term preservation in an Antarctic sanctuary, the protection of data resulting from scientific research on these ice cores and, more broadly, the international governance of this heritage. The Ice Memory Law and Governance Chair has been created precisely to meet these legal challenges.