Plastic Busters MPAs
The Project started the first February 2018, has a duration of 48 months and is coordinated by ISPRA. The PlasticBusters MPAs is an Interreg Med funded project with the aim to contribute to maintaining biodiversity and preserving natural ecosystems in pelagic and coastal protected areas by consolidating Mediterranean efforts against marine litter. For the first time on a Mediterranean scale, EU countries and candidate countries join forces to tackle the issue of marine litter with a coordinated approach. It will start from some pilot protected areas, such as the Sanctuary of the Cetaceans, to make a sort of census of all the macro and microplastics that pollute the site, and then study the consequences generated on the marine environment and the health of its fauna. The objective of "Plastic Busters MPAs" is also to define a "Governance Plan" of the Marine Protected Areas involved so as to extend it to all the marine protected areas of the Mediterranean. Finally, the project aims to provide policy makers with concrete recommendations and strategies for the management of marine plastic waste. The conference includes the participation, in addition to the 14 Project Partners and the 18 Associated Partners, of various representatives of various Interreg MED projects, Italian and foreign researchers and representatives of the Institutions.
The project is organized into the following
workpachage:
1. Project management (WP1);
2. Project communication (WP 2)
3. Studying activities (WP 3)
4. Testing activities (WP 4);
5. Transferring (WP 5);
6. Capitalising (WP 6).
To date, the following activities have been carried out and implemented:
Realization of the first Kick off meeting of the project (Siena), development of two Steering Committees (Siena and Bonifacio) with the involvement of all project partners and organization of the 1st Technical Workshop (Bonifacio) where, in addition to the partners the project managers, were involved coordinator of several Mediterranean projects on marine Litter, including UNEP MAP, to co-ordinate a Marine Litter monitoring and mitigation strategy in Mediterranean MPAs.
The document relating to the state of the art of Marine Litter in the Mediterranean has been produced and the following reports are under construction: “Diagnostic report on knowledge gaps and needs for marine litter and marine litter monitoring in Mediterranean MPAs” and “Joint Strategy for Monitoring Marine Litter and its impact on Biodiversity in Mediterranean MPAs: the Plastic Busters approach”.
From 7 to 9 May 2019, in Milazzo (ME) were held the third Steering Committee of Plastic Buster MPAs and the Technical Workshop, with the participation of partners and associated partners, organized by ISPRA. At the end of the work, around the recently established Capo Milazzo MPA, was conducted the first "simulation" survey of the monitoring protocol. The protocols will be applied during the following testing phases (WP4) in the following Mediterranean MPAs: Pelagos Sanctuary, Tuscan Archipelago, Cabrera Archipelago National Park (Spain) and National Marine Park of Zakynthos (Greece). Activities at sea were carried out with ISPRA research vessels ASTREA and Lighea.
From 8 to 23 July 2019, the first survey was conducted in the WP4 Testing suit in the area of the Tuscan Archipelago and in the Pelagos Sanctuary (eastern coast of Corsica), coordinated by ISPRA. The activity was attended by researchers from Ispra, University of Siena, Ifremer and OEC (France), Ente Parco Arcipelago Toscano, Consorzio Lamma and Secretariat Pelagos.
During the campaign were carried out: 71 screenings with Manta trawl, 131 observations of floating macrolitters and 11 biopsies on cetaceans. The researchers of the Lamma Consortium also tested the forecasting models of the distribution of the processed microplastics. Furthermore, in order to assess the presence and effect of microplastics in the marine environment, target species of mussels and fish have been taken.