Who never watched Kim-ki Duk’s wonderful movie “spring summer fall winter and spring”?! Who didn’t fall in love with the rhythm of the seasons in this incredible Korean valley?! (here is the link for who still hasn’t watched it http://www.filmpertutti.click/primavera-estate-autunno-inverno-e-ancora-primavera/). The parallels between the magical lake in the valley with our wonderful bay are quite obvious! ;)
The seasons of M.A.R.E.
Also our project M.A.R.E., since some years ago, works like the movie. Seasons that move trough new editions of the project, waiting for the approval of new applications form the National Agency, and then starting again the selection of new volunteers, the purchase of travel tickets, the welcoming and training, the beginning of the season with the strongest sun and the water temperature around 28°, the false slowdown of September and October when the sea is still warm and we have to work at the same time for the new application, the new false slowdown in November and December with the environmental education program in the schools of the park, and finally the volunteers’ departure, after the last feed-back activities!
Bureaucracy
The question is: what happens in the headquarters of project MARE and Punta Campanella MPA in January-February-March? The answer is very simple: writing financial and final reports, creating new initiatives, building new collaborations and projects: in short we just close the previous year and start to build the foundation for the next summer season. Project MARE is made also of papers and documents – to satisfy the hunger of bureaucracy of the European Commission, as well as because of the Marine Protected Area’s Public Body character. This is the most difficult job for me, in spite of my wish to wrap up the previous edition and to start the new one afresh in the best possible way.
Training & Contacts
To be honest wintertime is also the period that lets us – dog-days warriors – spend time on training about natural issues, marine biology, sea turtles, and also to work for new didactic material and training programs. In this case there are some books that help us, and some study methods as well (CARLIT cartography of littoral and upper-sublittoral rocky communities, for example), that we can use and apply during the next spring and summer. Also we work for the collaborations: this is the time to meet people and establish new symbiotic relationships to work better. Usually it works with organisations that care about volunteering, environmental protection, sustainability and youth training. This year besides the work with Sorrento Lingue that send us interns from the US to work for clean-up initiatives, and PRO LOCO Massa Lubrense with who we realize a very nice environmental education project “A sea to explore” that this year had even better results than the past edition, a newer and more interesting collaboration is going to be established with INN – International Napoli Network, that works for the incoming and orientation of volunteers from all around the world. Will this be our lifeline? Hope so, because this year National Agency have reduced the number of volunteers that we could host, and we need new arrivals to let us work on all the activities we built up over the years.
Right now I’ll be happy to finish all the papers of the past MARE edition, with the aim of producing an easy-to-read report for you all, clear and complete, to share with you the happiness about all the good results (and maybe find the way of discussing the bad ones). See you soon!
