Paraguay’s National Cultural Agency and the National Navigation and Ports Administration recently signed a cooperation deal to redevelop the main historic building in this inland port, as part of efforts to promote culture locally. The new site will be dedicated to the Guarani culture (of Paraguay’s indigenous people), and to Paraguayan history and identity more generally. The development is expected to make the port of Asuncion the country’s cultural center, while preserving the heritage building.

The motto could hardly be clearer: “explore, discover, experiment”. The province and the port authority of Antwerp (Belgium) have agreed to merge their port interpretation centers, as previously reported in this newsletter. A new website has just gone online. It will publish news about how the site redevelopment is progressing. School groups are still able to visit via the Havencentrum and the Portopolis exhibition remains open.

It’s no secret that the Iberian Peninsula is well positioned to become the key supplier of energy to Northern Europe, with its solar and wind power potential. Now, an agreement has been struck between the port of Bilbao (Spain), logistics operators in Amsterdam (Netherlands), and the port of Duisburg (Germany), to export future alternative fuels to the Ruhr Valley industrial region in Germany. The specific nature of the arrangement should prove attractive to investors. Similarly, a deal has been signed between the ports of Turku (Finland) and Stockholm (Sweden), with ferry operator Viking Line also set to be the focus of a new green shipping corridor: all of the company’s ferries will soon be carbon neutral.

The Port of Baku (Azerbaijan) has launched a robotics, coding, and STEAM course for Alat schoolchildren called Roboport. The project aims to develop the students’ skills to become the “engineers of the future”. The course is equipped with modern technological equipment and involves practical training by professionals. The program lasts 3-6 months and involves 3 groups of 12 children. The Port of Baku also hosted 60 young experts from the “Baku Decides: 1st Youth Climate Negotiations” conference, which aimed to discuss how to make the port the first “Green Port” of the region. The visit involved information on the history, development, and economic role of the port as well as its latest technological innovations and environmental projects.

The Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition recently awarded the port authority of Ceuta the label “Calculo, reduzco y compenso (I calculate, reduce and compensate)”, recognizing their efforts for the calculation, reduction and offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions generated by their activities. Among the achievements is the reduction of the carbon footprint by 9,8% between 2018 and 2021. This results from different measures such as the renewed fleet of vehicles, the implementation of LED lighting, the use of a monitored air conditioning system, the exhaustive control of all energy consumption in the and the improvement of the energy efficiency of some of the equipment. The effort to reduce the port pollution will continue with new projects, such as photovoltaics installations and analysis of the energy consumption of the port authority’s buildings.