T.adorn every summer on bags, shoes, swimwear, not to mention jewelry. Riccardo Tisci loves them and has even imagined for Burberry the love story between a mermaid and a shark. Trésor De La Mer is one of Versace’s most famous fantasies: Valentina Ferragni posted her pink sheath dress populated by shells and starfish of all colors from Hawaii. Too bad that there are fewer and fewer of them in the seato the point that they are trying to reproduce them in the laboratory.
They die from mysterious diseases, trapped in ghost nets which, although the name suggests it, have nothing supernatural about them. I’m abandoned, invisible and indestructible nets that kill fish, turtles, crabs, starfish and even birds.
The abandoned nets that kill the sea
According to a FAO and Unep report, every year 640-800 thousand tons of fishing gear are lost worldwide (nets, ropes, traps, floats, weights). It is a war bulletin for us too. In Marettimo, in the Egadi, a ton of nets have been recovered. Two others have emerged from the depths of the Cyclops Islands. In San Vito Lo Capo and Isola delle Femmine three thousand meters wrapped rocks and seabeds in a deadly embrace.
“No recovery is enough to repair the damage” sighs Monica Previati, passionate marine biologist of Worldrise Onlus who followed the project “A sea of stars“, Promoted by Bionike, a different way to face the summer, as well as with new sunscreens. “Floating, the nets continue to fish, while when they rest on the seabed they end up compromising the prairies of posidonia, brown, green and red algae. With the Bionike project we immersed ourselves in Sardinia. We managed to disconnect an entire network, six hundred meters (not always possible), we have released crabs, starfish, hedgehogs… Many do not know what the sea is and how much violence we do to it.
Only 1% of protected areas are active
Only 30 percent of the Italian coasts remained in their natural state. Of the 1140 marine protected areas that cover 6 per cent of the Mediterranean basin, barely one per cent is actually active. 80 percent of the dunes have disappeared. I have been studying nets for some time, I see how they tear and injure the gorgonians, transforming our wonderful 3D backdrop into a very banal flat expanse: the same difference that exists between a desert and a forest ».
Corals and shells are also not doing well. Apart from diseases, such as the one that exterminated the Pinna Nobilis, the enemy is acidification. On June 21, World Shell Day (established by the Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau to safeguard Fort Myers Bay and Sanibel Island in Florida), scientists took stock. “Shells are a marvel to protect»Says Stefano Pedone, Project Officer for SEAstainable within Worldrise Onlus. «Born as a ploy to defend against predators, they have played larger and more complex roles. Currently there are 20 thousand species of bivalves, between 40 and 100 thousand gastropods and many other molluscs. This ecosystem is threatened by the progressive increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: a significant amount (about 25-30 percent) is absorbed by the seas. Studies published in Nature explain that the pH of the Mediterranean is dropping by about 0.0044 points per year. Acidification can have dramatic consequences ». The most immediate: the shell’s “house” is made of calcium carbonate, acidification makes it difficult to “build” it. The shells are thinner and more fragile.
We can all monitor the damaged areas
a small glimpse of the crystal-set red (Aegadian Favignana Sicily Italy)
What to do? The collaboration between Scubadvisorthe first App in the world dedicated to diving enthusiasts and Marevivo Onlus, committed to the protection of the sea since 1985, it will improve monitoring. Anyone, respecting privacy, can send reports by attaching photos of the damaged area. The App identifies the GPS coordinates and passes them to Marevivo. The database will allow to evaluate the possible interventions.
Who does snorkeling, freediving, diving, can give information (there are many projects) and spreading virtuous behavior, even on the beach, says Monica Previati: «You don’t take starfish out of the water as trophies! It seems trivial, but if it is true that you would never put a cat in the oven, why let them die in the sun? You don’t touch the hedgehogs, you don’t bury the jellyfish alive. No shells are collected, no straws, plastic spoons or toys are left in the water. We need an education to respect the sea ».
Three good WWF tips for protecting starfish:
1) Never pick it up: the starfish has a substance on its body that allows it to breathe and can be altered by contact with the hands.
2) If you happen to find it near the shore move it to a quieter area, with the help of a net (not with your hands), taking care to keep it in the water!
3) Explain to children and adults that they will come over to watch it, how fragile this organism is, to be admired from a distance. A selfie can put her at risk.
And then: we could try to get to know the shells better (we have 17 protected species, it is forbidden to collect them), not just as souvenirs and jewelry, and to learn something about the five most common starfish in the Mediterranean, complex creatures even if they have no blood or brain: 5500 living species, a history that spans 500 million years between myths and legends. For Pliny the Elder, hanging one on the door removed the evil eye, and popular religiosity has maintained the auspicious spirit by associating it with the Madonna “Stella Maris”. Knowing more will make us become activists, in our own small way. Of course we will not be able to convince a bank to use marine microplastics to make credit cards (the actress Shailene Woodley did after her experience with Greenpeace), but if each of us adopted (very remotely) a starfish, perhaps we would extend the lives of all.
Starfish, wonderful, mythical, voracious creatures
The five most common stars in the Mediterranean illustrated by a biologist who takes care of them.
• Astrospartus mediterraneus. From the Latin aster (star) + spartos (shrub). The common name is Stella Gorgona, a mythological figure who had snakes instead of hair. It is called a basketball star, “basket star,” because it gathers on itself. It lives at a depth of 50-80 meters where it finds ideal conditions of light and food.
• Echinaster sepositus. This red star is found between rocky bottoms and Posidonia meadows oceanic up to 200 meters deep. It is a very selective species, especially in feeding: it eats only sponges.
• Coscinasterias tenuispina. Little known. She has a variable number of arms from 6 to 12 (usually 7) often of different lengths. The color also varies, light, creamy, in some cases bluish and spotted with brown, so much so that it is called the blue starfish or the white starfish. He is voracious, he loves sea urchins.
• Peltaster placenta. Also called sandwich star, cookie star or pentagon star. Little is known about her, perhaps because she lives at a reasonable depth (between 50 and 200 meters). Stocky, swollen, orange in color, mottled with yellow and red. She comes to 17 centimeters. She feeds on black coral.
• Hacelia attenuata. It prefers hard bottoms, between 3 and 150 meters. During the day she takes refuge in small caves and likes the heat so she lives in the eastern and southern part of the Mediterranean. The young are orange, the adults scarlet redexcept for someone who, out of rebellion, chooses yellow.
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