Save Hanö Bay!

Save Hanö Bay!

Since 2012, active work has been going on in Kivik and the surrounding area to save Hanö Bay and the Baltic Sea for the future. The Baltic Sea is one of the world's most polluted oceans and other growing problems are overfishing in combination with an excessively large population of predators such as seals and cormorants, ghost yarns and plastics, including microplastics and plasticizers from make-up, toothpaste and other products. Fishing, including the culturally historic eel fishery, is strongly threatened.

In 2016, Kiviks Museum took the initiative for a larger collaboration and invited various actors in and around Kivik to continue the work that began in 2012 and expand it with more actors, to work together for cleaner water. Every year, we hold large, open information meetings where we inform the public about what is happening around Hanö Bay. We make exhibitions at the museum, we collect observations from the public to the researchers and we communicate information to the public from researchers and authorities. Kiviks Museum also runs, in collaboration with researchers and universities across large parts of the world, research projects on sustainable tourism, resilience and cultural heritage and other environmental issues linked to cultural heritage.

In January 2018 grantedSavings bank foundation 1826a grant of SEK 786,000 to the Kiviks Museum, spread over one and a half years, to build a cooperation platform between coastal residents, companies, associations and institutions that want to work for cleaner water. Through this grant, we have been able to hire a project coordinator, who goes around the coastal communities to collect information and establish cooperation between coastal councils and companies in the joint work. We have also been able to hire a communicator, who has created a website, published information on social media, articles for newspapers, etc. Kiviks Museum has functioned as a project platform and enabler for the project as an administrator and in the fall of 2019 we have also functioned as project manager for the project Collaboration for Hanö Bay.

In December 2018, Stella Bowles visited Skåne and some schools in the north-eastern part of the region. Stella started as an 11-year-old by saving her local river, the LaHave River in eastern Canada, and managed to raise the equivalent of 110 million kroner to clean the river from sewage discharges. Today, Stella is 14 years old and not only works in Canada helping young people understand water issues and getting local initiatives started. She now does that across large parts of the world and has also published a book,Saving my river. In the film, she sent a greeting to the big meeting at Kiviks Bio on January 26, 2019.See the movie.

On January 1, 2020, Kiviks Museum handed over the project leadership and administration for the coordination of the coastal council, business pool and expert network to the newly formed non-profit associationResearchers, companies and coastal councils in the Cooperation for the Bay of Hanö. Sparbanksstiftelsen 1826 has continued to show support for the project by granting a grant of an additional SEK 300,000 for 2020. Anyone who wants to contribute with efforts of various kinds is welcome as members of the new association, which wants to work for clean water and a circular Hanö Bay region .

Read more about the work for Hanöbukten atFacebookand onthe website.

Here you can see the Kiviks Museum's exhibitions about the problems, but also the opportunities, around the Bay of Hanö:

2017 –Hanö Bay, the cocktail effects

2017 –Hanö Bay's local heroes

2017 –Timeline, Hanö Bay

2018 –A circular economy for the future of Hanö Bay

2018 –Local companies that have started working for cleaner water

2019 –Hanö Bay, the innovation winners