Healthy Seas cleans water polluted by abandoned fish farms in Ithaca
For the third year in a row, the Dutch non-profit organization “Healthy Seas” intervened in the waters of this southern Greek island.
Main objective of the mission, to clean polluted water made dangerous by abandoned fish farms.
The island has two that have been discharging debris and plastics into the marine environment for more than ten years.
These pollutants disrupt marine ecosystems, endangering flora and fauna.
According to Veronika Mikos, president of the “Healthy Seas” organization, “These ghost farms are old, abandoned, ruined agricultural facilities that pollute the region. It’s not just a problem for marine life and the environment,but it is also for the inhabitants, for tourism and leisure. Local communities lose area polluted by ghost farms“, she says.
Sea pollution particularly affects local fishermen who search in vain for fish around the island. The latter frequently find themselves trapped and die in the nets of abandoned farms, or simply leave the area due to pollution.
“The volume of fish is decreasing from year to year. There is a lot of trash at the bottom of the water. All of this has to come out of the sea. This is a very important initiative.“, says Argiris Manias, a fisherman from Ithaca
“Everyone is really supportive and that’s a great thing!”
After ten days of effort, two important sites were treated: one near Patras and the other in Ithaca. Around 30 tonnes of nets and waste were collected in Patras, while the number in Ithaca could be even higher. We are waiting for the results
In both cases, residents support the effort because so far they have not seen any cleanup initiatives from the Greek state.
According to Pascal Van Erp, founder of the non-governmental organization “Ghost Diving”
“In 2021, the local community was a little skeptical, and told us, “so you clean the farms, for real? Okay, we’ll leave it to you and let’s see where this takes us.”
“Now all the lights are green.The Coast Guard, the mayor, everyone, all the residents, everyone is really supportive of us and that’s a really good thing.” he declares.
A scourge for the planet
Initiatives like this help limit the damage in certain regions of the world, but this work of eradicating plastics and marine waste is still immense.
The phenomenon is difficult to quantify today, but it is estimated that ghost nets, fishing nets, and all lost or abandoned equipment represent around 10% of all plastic waste in the seas or oceans of the planet.
Journalist • Jean-Philippe Liabot
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