08/05/2024
The second leg of the ECOREST oceanographic cruise on board the R/V Gaia Blu of the CNR started on May 8th from Napoli port. The cruise is organized within the framework of the "LIFE DREAM" project, coordinated by Federica Foglini (Cnr-Ismar) and funded by LIFE+ programme of the European Commission, and of the National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC) – Spoke 1 and 2, one of the five National Center dedicated to the frontier research established within the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). Both the projects aims at studying and preserving Mediterranean ecosystems and biodiversity through actions of habitat protection and restoration.
The target habitats of the cruise are the “deep reef”, in particular the white and the back cold-water corals living at graet depths and constituting a biodiversity hot spot, providing refuge and habitat for other species and nursery for lots of organisms that can grow in an environment relatively safe from predators.
While ECOREST first leg was focused on the south Adriatic Sea (Project Area 1), including the study of the Bari Canyon cold-water corals and the oyster reefs offshore Monopoli, the second leg, coordinated by Paolo Montagna (CNR-ISP), will be conducted entirely in the Gulf of Naples (Project Area 2) and the objective will be the restoration of the deep ecosystems characterized by cold-water corals in the Dohrn Canyon. The activities will foresee the removal of Marine Litter located on the seafloor by means of a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and the deployment of artificial reef structures (ecoreef), realized with environmentally compatible material, that will provide substrate for the growth of new cold-water coral colonies. The plastic fraction of the litter collected will be recycled using a low-temperature pyrolysis prototype into marine fuel and will be given to the local fishers involved in the LIFE DREAM fishing for litter campaigns.
This circular economy experiment will foster a self-sufficient mechanism also after the end of the project reducing the plastics on the seafloor, reducing the use of traditional fuel and, consequently, reducing the CO2 emissions.
Among the "LIFE DREAM" and PNRR-NBFC partners, Cnr-Ismar, Cnr-Isp, Cnr-Irbim and Stazione Zoologica Anthon Dohrn are taking part to the ECOREST second leg in the Gulf of Naples. NetEC and Sp4ce42 will take care of the documentation and dissemination of the onboard activities.
You can follow the cruise on the LIFE DREAM social media!
Per informazioni:
Paolo Montagna
Cnr-Isp
paolo.montagna@cnr.it
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