Samskip to fund Greenland White-fronted Goose research

4 July, 2016 – Samskip is reinforcing its commitment to the environment by backing new research into the causes of a 20-year population crash in one of the wild Atlantic’s most extraordinary species.

The multimodal transport operator is to become a main sponsor of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust as it embarks on new research to preserve the Greenland White-fronted Goose in partnership with Scottish Natural Heritage, and the Universities of Aarhus and Exeter. The WWT study looks to understand what is behind a rapid decline in geese numbers first noted in the 1990s.

Discovered 60 years ago by WWT founder, Sir Peter Scott, the Greenland White-fronted Goose is an endangered species. Birds nest in West Greenland beside the ice cap, winter in the Celtic Fringe of the British Isles, and stop off for a month in spring and autumn in Iceland.

“The White-fronted Goose exists in isolation from other goose populations, but this does not protect it from the modern world,” says Eva Rademaker-de Leeuw, Samskip Manager Marketing and Communication. “Samskip’s business ethos is to offer intermodal products and services as a viable and environmentally sustainable alternative to road transport; we are proud to be associated with a project so closely aligned with our ‘building a better future’ sponsoring policy.”

Greenland White-fronted Goose offspring can remain with their parents for up to nine years – well into middle-age – and sharp falls have been recorded in the number of offspring returning to British and Irish wintering sites. Specific causes are not known, but milder summers in Greenland leading to higher spring snowfall in breeding grounds have coincided with the population decline.

The new study will see birds tagged with neck collars to monitor survival and breeding success among different Scottish wintering flocks, with some fitted with GPS devices to track movements throughout the annual cycle.

“Today, Samskip is a pan-European multimodal operation headquartered in Rotterdam, but this scheme also appeals to our roots in Iceland, where we continue to play a pivotal role as a provider of sustainable freight transportation services,” said Rademaker-de Leeuw.

To find out more about the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust’s Greenland White-fronted Goose conservation work, click HERE

To find out more about Samskip’s pan-European multimodal operation click HERE

Note to editors:

Samskip operates one of Europe’s largest multimodal container logistics systems. The Samskip network has the flexibility to move containers door-to-door between over 30 countries from the United Kingdom and Ireland to Russia, Scandinavia, Poland, the Baltic States, Finland and Iceland in the north to Spain.

Samskip offers a wide range of routing options, utilising road, rail, sea and inland waterways as appropriate to provide the best combination of rate and transit time to suit individual customer requirements and preferences. It has over 13,000 containers at its disposal, ranging from 20ft to 45ft pallet-wide high cube containers including reefers, curtain-siders and flat-racks.