Passionate about scuba diving since the age of 16, Anne-Marie Asselin could have made a living from this passion by continuing to accompany wealthy travelers on their grandiose diving trips. Having become a marine biologist, this Quebec native dedicated her career to protecting the St. Lawrence through the Blue Organization, the organization she co-founded.
Anne-Marie Asselin arrives by bike at our meeting point near the Quai de l’Horloge marina, in the Old Port of Montreal. Sitting by the river, while a strong breeze blows from the northeast, marks a break in a busy week for her. Earlier this month, the Blue Organization released a report profiling plastic pollution in eastern Canada. The first of its kind in the country, this research, funded in part by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), was carried out over five years in the river, estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE BLUE ORGANIZATION
The Blue Organization has led 91 cleanups, from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
A total of 20 tonnes of plastic waste (cigarette butts, pieces of plastic, bottles, packaging) were characterized, inventoried and analyzed. Pollution on a larger scale than the research team expected. “This tells us that the problem is real and omnipresent,” observes Anne-Marie Asselin. In Anticosti, on the slope facing the Gulf, there were open-air dumps. Currents carry waste to these shores devoid of humanity. When it comes time to award UNESCO heritage statuses, but no real conservation plan is put in place, it’s a bit of a dead end. »
View the report Portrait of plastic pollution 2019-2024
Love story with the river
His love affair with the river dates back to childhood: summers spent in Bas-Saint-Laurent, walks at low tide to pick molluscs, swimming with seals. “I think it was Trois-Pistoles that gave me so much love for the St. Lawrence,” says the woman who, from elementary school, wanted to become a marine biologist.
After university studies which led her to participate in the 1000 days for the planet mission, led by Jean Lemire, she worked on the international scene, notably for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, and was a member of the Quebec delegation within the framework of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
By founding the Blue Organization, she wanted to introduce marine environments into the environmental discourse in Quebec and to reach a young audience by moving away from catastrophist discourse.
The alarmist speech has been overused. People feel guilty. We have to go about it constructively and say: there is hope, here is what needs to be done.
Anne-Marie Asselin
According to her, it is a question of reducing the production and consumption of plastic, of broadening the responsibility of producers and of financing major operations to clean up the banks.
The Blue Organization is also working to develop, with the help of artificial intelligence, a pollution modeling system in eastern Canada which would make it possible to predict the trajectory of waste during wastewater spills caused by heavy rain.
At the end of the month, Anne-Marie Asselin will present her research work in Ottawa as part of the penultimate negotiating session for the adoption of an international treaty on plastic pollution. Then, next summer, she will set sail again. This second chapter of the Blue Expedition, a sailing adventure that is both scientific and creative, will allow the crew to measure the extent of plastic pollution in as yet unexplored sectors.
After several years of campaigning for actions to be taken to safeguard ecosystems, she has the feeling that the tide is turning. “There really is an army of humans working in society to take care of the environment. It’s extraordinary and I don’t think people realize it. »