PUBLISHED - October 15, 2026
Can storytelling provide a meaningful path to agency?
Alongside our contribution to the opening plenary at CommOcean 2026 in Bergen, we also presented our first poster, Bridging the Gap.
The poster starts from a simple observation. History and modern cultural development have created a gap between Swedes and Danes in what they know about Øresund. The two countries share one of the world’s busiest waterways, with more than 70 international ferry departures a day, and the most densely populated metropolitan area in the Nordic countries, where 3.8 million people live along its shores. For a thousand years, people have lived off the Sound. København, Helsingør, Malmö, Landskrona and Helsingborg were all built, directly or indirectly, on what it provided.
Today Øresund holds one of the largest mussel beds on the continent, covering around 75 square kilometres. It is a year-round home for the harbour porpoise and one of the few places in the wider Baltic region where the species has not yet retreated. Bluefin tuna, absent for decades, returned in 2016. Seagrass meadows, among the most efficient natural carbon sinks on Earth, grow quietly along both shores. Yet public interest in, and access to, information about these successes and the challenges that remain is limited.
The poster starts from a simple observation. History and modern cultural development have created a gap between Swedes and Danes in what they know about Øresund. The two countries share one of the world’s busiest waterways, with more than 70 international ferry departures a day, and the most densely populated metropolitan area in the Nordic countries, where 3.8 million people live along its shores. For a thousand years, people have lived off the Sound. København, Helsingør, Malmö, Landskrona and Helsingborg were all built, directly or indirectly, on what it provided.
Today Øresund holds one of the largest mussel beds on the continent, covering around 75 square kilometres. It is a year-round home for the harbour porpoise and one of the few places in the wider Baltic region where the species has not yet retreated. Bluefin tuna, absent for decades, returned in 2016. Seagrass meadows, among the most efficient natural carbon sinks on Earth, grow quietly along both shores. Yet public interest in, and access to, information about these successes and the challenges that remain is limited.
The lower half of the poster is a schematic of the overall condition of the Sound’s ecosystems over time. It runs from herring overfishing around 1300, through a century of stone fishing from the 1850s to the 1950s, down to the point where industrial pollution reached its maximum. The trawl ban, in force since 1932, and the construction of the bridge between 1995 and 2000 sit along the same timeline, and after its lowest point the line turns upward. At every stage a new baseline is set. Every generation inherits a Sound in poorer condition and calls it normal. The timeline ends on an open question: can Sweden and Denmark govern a marine protected area together?
The schematic is the short version of a much longer story, and one we are currently working on as a feature article on the history of Øresund.
At the centre of the poster is a cycle with storytelling at its core. Marine research allows people to know, education allows them to care, and conservation allows them to act. The model draws on Baba Dioum (1968), who argued that we conserve what we love and love what we understand, and on the ocean literacy dimensions described by Brennan et al. (2019).
Applied to the Sound, the same cycle shows how the gap could close. Swedes and Danes begin with separate knowledge of the water they share. Marine research turns it into common knowledge. Education turns common knowledge into an opportunity for change. Conservation is what follows.
The poster asks one question: can storytelling provide a meaningful path to agency? Understanding where we come from is fundamental to forging a sustainable path into the future, and that is the work Öresund Patrol sets out to do, with marine research, education and conservation on both sides of the Sound.
The schematic is the short version of a much longer story, and one we are currently working on as a feature article on the history of Øresund.
At the centre of the poster is a cycle with storytelling at its core. Marine research allows people to know, education allows them to care, and conservation allows them to act. The model draws on Baba Dioum (1968), who argued that we conserve what we love and love what we understand, and on the ocean literacy dimensions described by Brennan et al. (2019).
Applied to the Sound, the same cycle shows how the gap could close. Swedes and Danes begin with separate knowledge of the water they share. Marine research turns it into common knowledge. Education turns common knowledge into an opportunity for change. Conservation is what follows.
The poster asks one question: can storytelling provide a meaningful path to agency? Understanding where we come from is fundamental to forging a sustainable path into the future, and that is the work Öresund Patrol sets out to do, with marine research, education and conservation on both sides of the Sound.
