Strong Sea Life, four tons of nets removed in the Gulf of Asinara

Clean the seas of abandoned fishing gear in the seabed of the Gulf of Asinara and the north-western coast of Sardinia, to protect and conserve the Posidonia oceanica meadows and the coral habitat. This is the objective of the Strong Sea Life project, the plan financed by the European Commission's Life program which, two and a half years after its launch, has made it possible to remove approximately 4 tonnes of nets from the seabed from the protected marine area concerned.

The data was examined by the Project Advisor of the European Commission, Manuela Osmi and by the Project Monitor. The discussion at the headquarters of the Asinara National Park, in Porto Torres, on Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th May, with the 5 partners of the Strong Sea Life project, i.e. the representatives of Ispra, the Region's environmental supervisory forestry corps, Agris, Parco Asinara, Mcm with its affiliate Ecogreen and the French partner Petra Patrimonia Corsica. All the subjects illustrated to the managers of the European Commission the progress achieved from 2021 to today and, on board a fishing vessel and with the aid of an underwater remote-controlled vehicle, they demonstrated the operations necessary for the identification and recovery of ghost nets.

«The large quantity of nets recovered from the sea allows us to protect ten hectares of preserved posidonia, for which the state of conservation has improved, as well as three hectares of protected coral», underlines Serena Rumiri, Ispra manager of the project «a good result that it also responds to the objectives of the project with regard to sensitive species, of which we were able to protect a significant quantity, since the removal involved nets that were still in fishing. We can therefore say that we have increased the fish resource both from a conservation point of view, protecting important vulnerable species, and from a commercial point of view." Manuela Osmi, responsible for the management of the Life program of the European Commission, together with the external team that supports Cinea - the European Executive Agency for Climate, Infrastructure and the Environment - for monitoring the project, carried out a survey on Tuesday first check, scheduled once a year, aimed at checking the implementation of the individual actions of the plan. «We have found that the half-way results are satisfactory – declared Osmi – in relation to the conservation activities and the removal of these nets abandoned on the seabed, which create a serious danger for the habitats of community interest and for the species. We therefore believe that the actions have been successfully implemented and we now trust in the other half of the project."

The representative of the European Commission also underlined: «It is worth highlighting the pilot aspect of this project which has dedicated attention to the removal of these abandoned fishing gear and with consequent negative impact on the habitat and species, a plan that can be replicated in other contexts in the Mediterranean Sea". On the second day, Thursday 16 May, on board the Polaris fishing vessel, the team, which left from the fishing quay in Porto Torres, reached the point where a fishing tool was identified to be examined with the ROV, an important trawl that is expected to be removed in June with the help of a special fishing vessel.