Tara Ocean Foundation (Global)
The Tara Ocean Foundation, the first public interest foundation dedicated to the ocean in France, is developing open, innovative and ground-breaking scientific methods to help predict and react to the impact of global changes.
In 2020/2021, the Eurofins Foundation provided a grant to support Mission Microbiomes, the 12th scientific mission to study the ocean’s microbiome and the future of this ecosystem at the dawn of global changes in the South Atlantic, Antarctica and Chile.
Partnering with nearly 200 scientists worldwide, this mission looked to broaden our understanding of the impact of climate change and pollution on marine organisms.
One year after the beginning of the CEODOS project, several Chilean research centres have begun collaborating with the Tara Ocean Foundation's scientific community, whose holistic approach will be applied to study the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems off the coast of Chile.
Five virtual stopovers were organised by the Tara Foundation to raise awareness of the project, which were attended by more than 3,000 people, including schoolchildren, university students, members of the wider public and Chilean government representatives.
"This first part of Mission Microbiomes, ambitious in its scope despite the health constraints linked to COVID-19, was decisive because this area of the planet is really special. Our cooperation on the scientific and political level is very strong, and we await the results of the COP 26 Climate negotiations in Glasgow at the end of the year” explains Romain Troublé, Director General of the Tara Ocean Foundation.
In 2021/2022, the Eurofins Foundation renewed its support for the Mission Microbiomes project.
Among many accomplishments this year, the Tara Ocean Foundation's visit to Chile has strengthen scientific cooperation initiated in 2015 with the funding of two Chilean post-doctoral students by the Tara Ocean Foundation and the French Global Environment Facility. It is also a structuring element for Chile that allows the creation of an awareness of a multidisciplinary scientific project and to establish recognition of Chile on the international scene. A similar cooperation project is on going in Senegal.
In 2022/2023, the Eurofins Foundation keeps supporting Tara Ocean Foundation, through funding allocated to the TARA Mission TREC (TRaversing European Coastlines), an ambitious collaborative project aimed to study European coastal ecosystems; focused on biodiversity and organismal adaptation across land-sea interface.
The project aims at:
- Identifying natural and manmade factors driving coastal biodiversity and understanding molecular mechanisms of species and community’s plasticity and adaptation.
- Tracking gene flux and functionality between soil and ocean.
- Raising public and policy awareness for coastal ecosystems.
This project contributes to the following United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals
