MARSEILLE: MENTION VERY GOOD – A bachelor to protect our seas!
They are trainees (or apprentices) of the brand new promotion “BTS and Bachelor of management and protection of marine environments” a unique training in France! For 5 days, they are mobilizing to remove from the Mediterranean tires and waste that line the bottom of the Calanque Blanche
La marseillaise à pétanque 2022, 61st edition of the world
The launch of the “PROPRE” operation (Depollution Operation for the Protection and Restoration of the Ecosystem)
Its crystal clear waters, its posidonia herbarium, its purple gorgonians, its sea bream…and its tires…Here, more than 200 tires lie on the sand at a depth of 13 meters! This calanque has long served as a wild dump. A pollution invisible from the surface but which threatens this fragile ecosystem. Studies show that tires release toxic substances, including endocrine disruptors, metals and plastic residues.
These 11 young trainee divers decided to withdraw them to put an end once and for all to this insidious pollution. Their training was designed by the vocational training center for apprentices, the southern region and the Septentrion Environnement association to meet very real needs. The objective is to train operational personnel, technicians capable of imagining and carrying out any type of operation to preserve the marine environments of the Mediterranean (against certain forms of pollution that have become chronic).
Their big cleaning took several weeks: it was necessary to make an inventory of the organisms to be kept, to evaluate the quantity of waste to be removed, the necessary means, to manage the constraints of time, money, weather constraints of course… And finally dive to store the tires out of damage.
Tailor-made training to protect the Big Blue
The discovery by Ifremer of a real landfill in the Mediterranean at a depth of 2,000 meters had the effect of a bomb. Training senior technicians specialized in the management and preservation of marine environments is more than ever a necessity!
The students receive professional diver training and master a range of tools and methods for monitoring and managing natural marine environments: photogrammetry, drone and ROV piloting.
They will be able to intervene directly on the ground but not only… They also acquire the necessary tools to develop and implement actions of animation and consultation of the various actors of the region in order to best respond to its problems. . Very specialized and very practical, this course is thought of as a breeding ground for “all terrain” men and women for various organizations, whether public (natural parks, local authorities) or private (design office, specialized associations). The very first promotion ends next March!
The Mediterranean is the most polluted sea in the world…
Faced with this very worrying observation, the Métropole has adopted an action plan. The objective: to reduce plastic pollution at sea as much as possible by 2025. With nearly 600,000 tonnes of plastic spilled each year into the Mediterranean Sea (including 11,200 tonnes from France), the challenge is immense.
This makes this area with its rich natural and cultural heritage one of the most plastic polluted in the world! A phenomenon naturally aggravated by the geographical position of the Mediterranean. Surrounded by three continents and full of intense human activity, these waters constitute a real “trap” for plastic. On a global scale, 700 marine species are now threatened by pollution and, by 2050, our oceans could accommodate more plastic waste than fish… (data: Métropole Aix Marseille Méditerranée).
11 young people resolutely committed to the planet and the oceans.
The last 2 reports of IPCC in the midst of the Ukrainian crisis and the presidential elections went almost unnoticed. However, they draw up an inventory of the losses already suffered and reveal very concrete scenarios for the future depending on the degree of warming reached. They also put forward solutions to limit damage and add that the three years which will be decisive.
How will the generation that will bear the full brunt of these changes intervene in these reports? Antonin, Margaux and Tao conveyed their resentment to us in a Mediterranean region which will be one of the most impacted by climate change.