Enhancing marine protected areas through waste recovery During the Re-think event held in Naples in July, Carmine Esposito, Head of Mare Vivo Campania region, presented Mare Vivo, an environmental association that has been working nationally and internationally for more than 40 years to protect the sea and the environment. It consists of its own scientific technical committee of University professors, researchers, and professionals who are experts in the various issues the association deals with. The association is divided into territorial delegations and divisions, such as the diving division, the marine protected areas division, the rivers division, and, most recently, the naval league division. The latter arose from a memorandum of understanding with the Italian Naval League as part of a project having as its object pollution, which aims to reduce marine pollution by microplastics. This battle has been carried on for some time now. All activities carried out by the association aim to increase the attention of public opinion and relevant institutions toward the sea. Among the activities carried out are environmental education, scientific research, sustainable development, training, information campaigns, and shoreline and seabed cleanup activities. In recent years, Esposito continued, environmental education programs have given much satisfaction. For example, the “Dolphin Guardians” project features children as protagonists. It aims to increase their awareness of the enormous environmental, landscape, and natural heritage that their territory possesses, as well as wanting to reverse the direction by trying to reduce the impact of pollution. At the end of the “Guardian Dolphins” course, the participating children will become true sentinels of the sea, able to carry out monitoring and reporting activities at the relevant maritime offices of the harbor master’s office. Numerous educational institutions throughout Italy have been reached with great satisfaction. Mare Vivo also, Esposito continued, schedules several educational visits with foundations...
Blue Economy
-
-
1 September 2022During the Re-think Circular Economy Forum held in Taranto in 2021, Cees Willem Koorneef, Director of PortXL Antwerp, shared some insights from the Netherlands, in particular about the port of Rotterdam, and about what is actually happening in global challenges, but he also gave some inspiration from the port ecosystems, as he called it the “Dutch Magic”. It’s all about the global challenges, therefore not only the challenges in Italy, but also in the port of Rotterdam where he has been working for 25 years. The main challenges in the world Ports regards: • demand and supply, changing a lot because of Covid-19 pandemic and also because of a ship blocking the Suez channels lately; • predictibal logistics; • global congestion: in the big ports all over the world everybody is looking for empty containers, there’s a congestion of ships waiting on the anchorage; • carbon footprint; • the need for energy transition and, with this transition, also comes the urge for digitalization: the ports logistics is still a bit conservative, there’s a need for digitalized sensors and traceable logistics. To create a sustainable port ecosystem, Cees Willem Koorneef said PortXL believes in building coalitions, consortia and it’s crucial to be aware of your innovation ecosystem. Of course you need talent in your ecosystem, so youth education is crucial, but also an innovation maturity of your corporate companies (this is something PortXL is exploring in many ports), startup activities, so in which way are young companies being promoted and stimulated as a spin-off of the universities or to start your own business as an entrepreneur. The other pieces of the puzzle are about capital (there needs to be money available to really support innovation in the ecosystem) and the ecosystem connectedness. The experience in the port of Rotterdam underlines that,...