Marine Litter in the Pelagos Sanctuary: alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much!

Abstract

Participation of volunteers in scientific projects has been demonstrated to be effective also from educational and social point of view, since it fills the gap between who produces science/technology and who benefits from it. Nevertheless, motivating and enabling citizens in a long-term commitment represents an essential problem. SeaCleaner project is an example on how this can be guaranteed trough involvement of both volunteers and students in a monitoring program on the subject of marine litter, in a stretch of the Mediterranean-Sea characterized by the presence of marine mammals (Pelagos Sanctuary). This areal is threatened, as many coastal areas, by increasing pollution due to the waste stranded on beaches or floating in the water column, with damage to marine life. Monitoring activities have been carried on, in the last two years, through collaboration of research institutions (ISMAR, INGV), educational institutions (Liguria, Emilia-Romagna and Toscana secondary schools), voluntary associations, national and regional parks and protected marine areas in Liguria and Toscana [1]. Students have been directly involved in the definition of a protocol of data acquisitions (based on MSFD [2]), and in the set up of an app for Android devices, easy-to-use and, at the same time, methodologically sound and comprehensive, that should support volunteers during scheduled trash removal campaigns, overcoming the current lack of data (amount of litter per unit of surface, correlations between trash abundance and factors as degree of protection of the area, presence of rivers, ports, touristic activities etc.). Seacleaner effects: it expands young generation's knowledge on topics not strictly related to scholastic curriculum, and approaches environment problems often unknown to them; it brings students of middle and high school to interact each other and with volunteers and researchers engaged in the monitoring actions (peer-education, inter-generational education), it implements technology training for solving environmental problems concerning local heritage.