Noi e il Mare

From 6 to 12 June, hundreds of Italian volunteer divers will spring into action to safeguard the sea within the “Noi e il Mare”  initiative, the largest Italian seabed clean-up day organised for the third year running by the Italian Coast Guard and MedSharks to mark World Oceans Day.
Divers from thirty dive centres and four Coast Guard Diving Units will dive in eleven coastal regions to free marinas, MarineProtected Areas, and areas of natural and archaeological interest from marine litter. The previous initiatives organised in 2020 and 2021, ‘Spazzamare’ and ‘Mare Pulito’, had led to the collection of 13 tonnes of waste. The waste recovered will be disposed of with the cooperation of local authorities, in a general rehearsal ahead of the entry into force of the SalvaMare (Save the Sea) law, approved on 11 May, which will make the management of marine litter easier.
The by now traditional day of clean-up of the Italian seafloor, which involves the largest number of dive centres throughout Italy, takes place under the auspices of Clean Sea LIFE, an awareness project on marine litter co-funded by the European Union within the LIFE programme. In four years, Clean Sea LIFE involved more than 170,000 people in clean-up, training and awareness-raising activities, removed 111 tonnes of waste from the sea and assisted authorities in formulating laws to reduce marine litter. Last week  Clean Sea LIFE was recognised by the European Commission as the best European LIFE environmental project, also winning the “Citizens’ Award“.
“Clean Sea LIFE formally ended last year but as you can see today the community that grew up around the project, a human network of citizens and institutions, continues to work tirelessly to protect the sea. The divers of the diving centres and the men and women of the Coast Guard celebrate Ocean Day in the best way possible: by working together for a cleaner sea,” remarks Eleonora de Sabata, MedSharks president and Clean Sea LIFE spokesperson.