The international project “Plastic Busters MPAs” is born, to evaluate the impact of plastic and adopt common policies to combat pollution
The alarm of scientists for thevery high level of plastic pollution in the Mediterranean is welcomed by the European institutions, with the aim of reaching common legislative policies, and activating concrete mitigation actions of the phenomenon: Interreg Europethe European Union fund for regional development, has approved and granted an important loan to progetto “Plastic Busters MPAs”dedicated to the protection of the protected areas of the Mediterranean, to the evaluation of the impact of plastics and microplastics on marine fauna, to the definition of common actions to combat pollution.
The project derives from Plastic Bustersan initiative of the University of Siena and its researchers of marine ecolology and environmental ecotoxicology, coordinated by Professor Maria Cristina Fossi, who for years have been dedicated to scientific research, public awareness raising and institutional networking for the protection of the Mediterranean from plastic waste.
“Plastic Busters MPAs”, a four-year project that has just started, which involves 15 partner from Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Albania, Croatia and Slovenia, obtained a loan of over 5 million euroshas the scientific responsibility ofUniversity of Sienaand is coordinated by ISPRA, Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research. This is the first project on a Mediterranean scale, in which the countries of the European Union and some candidate countries join forces to tackle the problem of marine litter, with a coordinated approach. The Mediterranean is in fact one of the areas most affected by plastic waste in the world, as recently documented in international scientific journals by the researchers involved in the project. Even within protected areas, the impacts on marine fauna, including endangered species, are not fully known, and prevention and mitigation measures are still insufficient.
“Plastic Busters MPAs” will be realized as part of the Med-Interreg program (2014-2020) and will have the task of diagnosing the impacts of macro and microplastics on biodiversity in marine protected areas, of defining and testing measures for the surveillance, prevention and mitigation of marine plastic waste pollution, of developing a common framework of actions, policies and legislation. The goal is also to define a joint governance plan, through a participatory approach and a concrete commitment of the marine protected areas involved in the project, to implement it through specific memoranda of understanding, with the aim of extending the best practices identified to all marine protected areas of the Mediterranean. In the final part of the project, the aim will be fprovide policy makers with recommendations and strategies for the management of marine plastic litter.
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