Updated on May 7, 2024
FESTA DEL PESCE | FISH FESTIVAL
On the 29th of September PROJECT MARE went to Festa del Pesce in Positano to represent the MPA and give a hand to party staff.
Spiaggia di Fornillo was crowded and preparations started three days prior to the event. We met a great part of the amazing staff members, amazing people with picturesque life stories, such as Claudia Irace and Daniele.
We assisted them in assembling the recycling trash bins. Hundreds of people were expected to attend so we had to make sure all the beach was covered with them. It took 4 people and one hour and a half to do it. For our great displeasure, people do not care to use them properly regardless of the fact that each bin had different colors and symbols as explicit instruction for recycling. In part due to this, this year the party’s organization decided to invest heavily in biodegradable cutlery and dishes. Last but not the least, as we were spreading the word on the main activities and goals of the MPA and on the importance of Posidonia oceanica, although having good reactions of the public in general, a group of local youngsters replied negatively to our teams intent to promote awareness. They expressed such disinterest in our strategies of conservation that one of the young locals threatened we would find our info flyers in the sea if we gave him one. Crazy stuff! For us this is utterly demotivating: the complete blindness and unawareness of people plus the lack of interest and the feeling of unimportance from young locals towards the environment that greatly influences their daily life circumstances. But we don’t quit. We keep smiling, resilient, aware and focused on the good imprint we want to leave. As much as we can, we try to reach out to everyone. We kept focused on our mission throughout the evening, we ate crazily good food, we laughed, we had fun and for sure we came up with better ideas and different strategies to persuade people to have a more environmental friendly attitude for the next party.
That’s it folks!
Updated on October 5, 2018
Caretta caretta in Cilento, edition 2018: 6 nests, 450 “tartarughine”!
This month of september, 4 of us were invited by the marine turtle research centre “stazione zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli” to take part in the monitoring of two of the six sea turtles nests in the region of Cilento!
Because the baby turtles would hatch more or less at the same time, two teams were made, so two of us went to Caprioli and two other to Montecorice. Whereas the first team arrived the 4th of september and was supposed to stay until the 13th the second team arrived on the 8th and had planned to stay until the 16th.
It is more or less possible to know when the babies will emerge from the sand but as we experienced in Cilento when nature is involved nothing is sure. For that reason the whole time until we closed the nests and left, the nests had to be looked after 24/7 in case there was any movement.
The incubation lasts approximately 60 days. Baby turtles emerge out of the sand 3 to 7 days after breaking out of their egg (using a temporary, sharp egg-tooth, called a “caruncle”). They are born with an embryonic egg sac which provides them with nutrition for those few days before they are free from the nest. The liquid contained inside the eggs will form something like a cocoon around the eggs and as soon as that cocoon breaks we know the babies will soon be coming out. At 30 to 50 centimetres under the sand the turtles work their way up together, it can take hours before you see the first turtle. As soon as one is out you can see baby turtles popping out of the sand like popcorn.
The two nests behaved very differently.
In Caprioli after 2 nights on the beach, taking care of the nest, finally in the night of the 7th september 53 turtle came out and then two more turtles broke out of the sand one the next night and another one on the 9th (after the first immersion it is still possible that some emerge in the three next nights).
In Montecorice we just finished setting up the camp around the nest when the cocoon brock (which meant that the babies would soon be there), we got our tasks explained and 102 hatchlings emerged one and a half hours later. Then we kept the babies for an hour and a half for research purposes. Ounces we weighed, measured and checked 34 of the 102 we released them all and watched them walk into the sea.
It is interesting to know that both of the nests have produced almosty females because the turtle’s gender is determined after fertilisation like most turtles, alligators and crocodiles it is the temperature of the developing offspring that determines whether it will be male or female: the warmer the more likely it is to produce females and the colder it will produce males.
On the 11th the team of Caprioli had closed their nest and came to assist to the opening of our nest in Montecorice. The undiging of the nest is a crucial part of the investigation of turtles nests because you discover what happened under the sand for the last 70 days. For example we discovered that our nest was a very healthy nest, with the 93 percent of the layed eggs that had made it out, that some of the eggs had no visible embrione, some had a visible embrione, and that no turtles died on the way up to the surface… . After taking DNA samples of the dead eggs we closed the nest and went celebrating.
That was an amazing experience sleeping on the beach and seeing in real life what i have seen as a kid in documentaries!
Posted on September 11, 2018
UMPE goes to Ieranto
After a huge summer, it’s time for “UN MARE PER ESPLORARE” (a sea to explore) – program of discovery and compatible of the marine environment, organised by the Punta Campanella MPA, PRO LOCO Massa Lubrense, and logistic support of MAREA Outdoors.
This time we did a big adventure: jumped on our kayaks, we took paddles masks and flippers and we started our trip to the wild Ieranto Bay, flagship of the park.
With Matteo and Carlo, Ilaria Martina e Miriam, Valentina, Silvia and Alessandro – average age 7 year and a half – we met in the late morning at la perla beach to organise our usual actiity to better understand the marine park. But this time weather conditions were perfect, and the limited number of participants and the wish to explore the sea just like James Cook did some hundred years ago, let us take all the kayaks we have and get on board.
Obviously we couldn’t do it without feraless parents (Veronica, Rossana, Cira, Alba, Teresa), kayak guides of MAREA Outdoors (Gianna, Nuria e Alba) and the survivor volunteer of project M.A.R.E. Laura (the rest of the team is in Cilento for sea turtle nest conservation and monitoring – and fabien is in Croatia for a Youth Exchange on the topic of the sea conservation).
The day was: the sun, smiles of kids, blue of the sea, wonderful bay, jumping from the platform, seabeams escaping, jellyfish hugging, starfish greeting us.
Punta Campanella MPA and project M.A.R.E. promote ecocompatible tourism and sustainable usage of marine resources as the correct way to enjoy nature without destroying. We do hope to start again our program of environmental education in collaboration with pro loco, waiting for the fall session!
Updated on May 7, 2024
Tomato sauce – L’estate è “passata”!
On Tuesday the 14th me and Dani went to do the mythical tomato sauce with Alba. Five big boxes of tomatoes from the trustworthy neighbor that grows them in the old fashioned way, 25kg each. 125kg of tomatoes! Oh yeah!
How did we manage it?
We got a big bucket, cleaned all tomatoes one by one to make sure that we’ve cleaned out from them all dust and natural bug repellent. Cleansed the tomatoes we’ve collected all the big buckets from the house and we’ve put the tomatoes on them. Then we’ve hunted for all the glass bottles we could find: beer, wine, beans, sauces – from the garage, the uncle, friends, the grandmother: (almost) everything is good to go, to buy them sometimes too. Cleaned, put on the oven, disinfected checked! Time to seat down around the tomatoes and empty buckets.
One by one, we have cut them in four to see if there was something not good inside them. As we talked I did my calculations: every box had more or less 200 tomatoes… and we did them all in one day! Amazing! Blood, sweat and loads of laughter and chitchat: I cut myself on the knee, Dani his finger, Alba the master was OK!, we didn’t sweat but it rained dogs and cats so we were wet… waterlogged. Cut all the holy tomatoes we went for the baking: tomatoes pot on the way, red everywhere. Calm down, you need more than one hour to make them cook to the right point and we needed to do three bakes like that… we’ve finished it after midnight but we’ve done it.
Squeezing machine assembled, table ready, pots and pots of “passata”, funnels and scoops, plus the help of the kids, Mimì on fire and the three of us on the red fight, 100 bottles we managed to make. Lunch? Tomato salad. Dinner? Tomato macaroni. Sleep? With tomato dreams.
Now, until December we all eat tomato food and nothing else.
Updated on August 12, 2018
French month, greed month!
There are a Spanish, a Latvian, two Portuguese and two French. This could be the beginning of a joke, but it is not! It’s all the opposite! It is simply the story of an EVS project and its beauty, its richness: diversity and cultural exchange!
With the M.A.R.E. we are lucky to be 6 young people gathered, from 4 different countries, and many different cultures.
Also, now that we are halfway through the project, that we have begun to enjoy and share our different experiences and cultures, it was time to start discovering a little more each countries, dedicating them a whole month to each.
That’s how in July, once a week, we had a French evening!
Quickly, we focused on french gastronomy, maybe a little too much, even if the idea of eating french really liked to the participants and their greed! So, we had the desire to share this quite important side of France.
We started with a french dinner, with the following menu: first course, Galette Bretonne with mushrooms and its salad, then the second was from Réunion with Tony’s Carry, and finally a chocolate Mousse.
And then, we had a Crêpes evening , which could be to France what Pizza evenings are to Italy!
In short, a great time to be with friends and enjoy the food!
But then it was time for the other evenings to leave food and get to know France a little better. For this, with the beautiful company of Ariana, Eve and David, who have already returned to the United States, and to who we send our regards and thanks!, we had a beautiful evening all together, playing a game related to French culture and history.
In the end, we had the desire to talk about nature in France, which has a great biodiversity, especially with its DOM TOM, as Réunion for which one we were more in detail to discover its characteristics. We have also shared on the sensitive subject of the great predators (bear, lynx, wolf) and their management in France!
To close this theme and last French evening, we introduced the great marine explorer Jacques Yves Cousteau, before seeing L’Odyssée, a beautiful film that shows his life, all while enjoying the Coussins de Lyon, a specialty of a Lyon’s chocolate factory!
And all this is the cultural months, but in fact the whole EVS project! Friendly time, sharing, new knowledge and joy of living all together!
À la prochaine!
See you!
