In the summer 1886, the Neandertal fossils of Spy were unearthed in the so-called Betche aux Rotches cave. Ever since, they have been through many events and have been the stake of discords, sometimes impassioned, between the various protagonists of their discovery and their conservation. The succession of these events will be redrawn here and the positions of each cleared up in the light of the rereading of two archives collections coming from the discoverers, namely the correspondence collection of Maximin Lohest, which is Mrs Dallemagne-Ophoven’s property, and the correspondence collection of Marcel De Puydt, handed over to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), which we shall refer to as “the Vercheval collection”.
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RBINS Staff Publications
Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy is key to international energy transition efforts and the move toward net zero. For many nations, this requires decommissioning of hundreds of oil and gas infrastructure in the marine environment. Current international, regional and national legislation largely dictates that structures must be completely removed at end-of-life although, increasingly, alternative decommissioning options are being promoted and implemented. Yet, a paucity of real-world case studies describing the impacts of decommissioning on the environment make decision-making with respect to which option(s) might be optimal for meeting in- ternational and regional strategic environmental targets challenging. To address this gap, we draw together international expertise and judgment from marine environmental scientists on marine artificial structures as an alternative source of evidence that explores how different decommissioning options might ameliorate pressures that drive environmental status toward (or away) from environmental objectives. Synthesis reveals that for 37 United Nations and Oslo-Paris Commissions (OSPAR) global and regional environmental targets, experts consider repurposing or abandoning individual structures, or abandoning multiple structures across a region, as the op- tions that would most strongly contribute toward targets. This collective view suggests complete removal may not be best for the environment or society. However, different decommissioning options act in different ways and make variable contributions toward environmental targets, such that policy makers and managers would likely need to prioritise some targets over others considering political, social, economic, and ecological contexts. Current policy may not result in optimal outcomes for the environment or society.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023
