DARKER SKY Mid-Term Event: Advancing Light Pollution Research and Community Engagement
The mid-term event of the DARKER SKY project took place on 25 March 2025, in Leeuwarden and Holwerd, the Netherlands, followed by the 4th partner meeting on 26 March. This milestone gathering brought together project partners and stakeholders to share updates and insights on ongoing and planned activities aimed at reducing light pollution and enhancing technical solutions and monitoring. Local and international stakeholders joined the meeting in presence or online, including representatives from other EU-funded project.
The event provided a platform for knowledge exchange, featuring key presentations from project partners. The University of Brest led discussions on ecological monitoring at pilot sites, sharing initial results and methodological approaches. Additionally, updates on lighting modifications at the Port of Norddeich (Germany) were presented, highlighting continuous light measurement efforts across all pilot sites.
Representatives from Hamburg, Holwerd, and Lauwersoog showcased their innovative planning tools and strategies for community engagement, underlining the importance of participatory approaches in light pollution mitigation and stressing the crucial role of transdisciplinary collaborations. The event also featured a roundtable discussion focusing on the ecological effects of light pollution, monitoring techniques, and the practical implementation of municipal lighting plans.
The day concluded with an immersive visit to the Holwerd demonstration site with a night walk and an Extended Reality (XR) session.
DARKER SKY is an Interreg North Sea project (ERDF funding) which aims at reducing light pollution and increasing biodiversity and ecological connectivity in the North Sea Region (France, Germany, the Netherlands & Denmark) by providing municipalities and ports with innovative measuring, monitoring and co-design methods for the implementation of environmentally sound and energy-efficient light reduction benefitting biodiversity and communities.