North Sea
The North Sea, bordered by England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, is geologically a young body of water. It has been around for about 8,000 years. Despite the fact that the North Sea covers 60% of Dutch territory (58,500 km2), which makes it the largest public space in the Netherlands, there is very little social, cultural and political awareness of this water body.
The North Sea is one of the busiest seas in the world, suffering from intensive shipping, intensive agriculture, oil and gas extraction, development of offshore wind energy, centuries of overfishing and trawling, military exercises and dredging. The accumulative, large-scale effects of all these activities have severely damaged the ecosystem and ecological processes and caused heavy degradation of the food system and biodiversity. Not one of the fish groups (coastal, demersal, deep sea, pelagic) is in good condition, and many species are red-listed. Less than 1% (0.3%) of the North Sea is actually protected. We are exhausting the North Sea, and we ask her to run a marathon.
The Embassy of the North Sea
Founded on the principle that the sea belongs to itself, the Embassy of the North Sea – an international collective of artists, lawyers, ecologists and scientists based in the Netherlands – makes political space for the seas’ emancipation through connection, imagination and representation. Today’s most pressing ecological issues transcend borders and species, yet we mostly approach them from the nation-state perspective. The Embassy of the North Sea highlights how the lives and livelihoods of more-than-human beings are insufficiently and ineffectively represented, jeopardising humans and other entities alike. We have plotted a route through to 2030, firstly learning to listen to the sea before we learn to speak with it. Finally, we will negotiate on behalf of the North Sea and all the life that it encapsulates.