- For thirty years, the Posidonia meadows have been a protected species in the Mediterranean.
- The CPIE association of the Iles de Lérins has been helping to protect them for the past fifteen years.
- This year, the message of their prevention campaign is reinforced by a prefectural decree of 2019 prohibiting the mooring of boats in areas where there are "protected plant species".
Anchoring is "the first cause of degradation of seagrass beds" in Posidonias, warns Jamila Poydenot. All summer long, outside Cannes, its employees at the Permanent Center for Environmental Initiatives (CPIE) in the Lérins Islands & Pays d'Azur will travel the Mediterranean to preach the good word to boaters. And the message is clear: station where you drop your anchor!
The “Mediterranean eco-gestures” campaign in the PACA region is focused this year on this marine species that has been protected for thirty years.
And the CPIE relies on the prefectural decree signed on June 4, 2019, prohibiting anchorage in areas that may “affect conservation, or lead to the destruction, alteration or degradation of habitats d 'marine protected plant species'.
"We encourage them to wet in sandy areas"
Begun this Wednesday, the campaign to protect the sea and the Posidonia meadows will run until the end of August. Twenty intervention dates in the Mediterranean are planned, especially around the Lérins Islands. “This area is where there are the most issues because it is where there is the most traffic. Last year, there were 2,000 boats on August 15, ”said Jamila Poydenot, project manager at CPIE.
“They are encouraged to wet in sandy areas. And we show them the right gestures to raise their anchor without tearing the seagrass, if they have ever anchored in the wrong places ”. Anchoring is "the primary cause of herbarium degradation," says Jamila.
Very slow regrowth, "one centimeter every 100 years"
The Posidonia, however, play a decisive role in the life cycle of fish, says Jamila. They notably serve as nurseries. "If they are uprooted, the herbaria take time to regrow: one centimeter every 100 years" she specifies.
"Our goal with boaters is to explain to them the good gestures of the marine practice so that they themselves are actors," explains the project manager of the CPIE island of Lérins. “Generally those who are used to the area already know everything. We intervene especially for newcomers, who are not necessarily knowledgeable of the Mediterranean ecosystem. "
Our file on the Mediterranean
In support of the CPIE's action, the Donia application, produced and managed by Andromède oceanologie, will be able to help boaters. This digital tool allows them to identify anchor areas outside fragile ecosystems.
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