POSITANO LOVES POSIDONIA

It’s a Mediterranean seagrass that, in the right conditions, forms huge underwater meadows. It is able to reproduce vegetatively over vast timespans, forming clonal colonies by spreading rhizomes through the substrate that give rise to new plants. Often referred to as “the lungs of the sea”, it can absorb 15 times more carbon dioxide than a similar-sized area of the Amazon rainforest. Posidonia meadows are estimated to play host to between 20% and 25% of all Mediterranean marine species. And the plant is a reliable marker of maritime health, as it will only grow and spread in clean, unpolluted waters.

Even the accumulations of dead Posidonia that wash up on Mediterranean beaches serve a useful function. Known as banquettes, they prevent erosion, maintain beach stability and support coastal biodiversity by creating microhabitats for small marine organisms and insects.

However, Posidonia – also known as Neptune grass – is threatened by rising seawater temperatures and by damage from anchors and dragnet fishing. These factors are especially worrying as this is such a slow-growing species. A colony found in 2006 south of the island of Ibiza took an estimated 100,000 years to spread from a single plant to cover a breadth of 8 kilometres. It may be the oldest such clonal colony on earth.

In the Gulf of Naples, an area of the Mediterranean subject to intense anthropic pressure due to the presence of large centres of population, heavy industry, wastewater discharge, fishing activities, ferries, cruise ships and leisure craft, the area of the seabed covered by Posidonia meadows has drastically declined in recent years.

PosiFARM is a project that aims to slow, halt and eventually reverse the trend. It’s led through its CSI Gaiola Onlus managing body by the Parco Sommerso di Gaiola, a 42-hectare marine protected area west of Naples that also operates as a conservation research centre, in collaboration with the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station in Naples. It is, in essence, a reforestation or rewilding initiative – one complicated just a little by the fact that the replanting takes place around 14 metres under the surface of the sea.

Aldo and Francesco Sersale of Le Sirenuse were alerted to this vital work by a family friend, Briano Martinoni, the co-founder and CCO of Green Future Project, and immediately committed to supporting it. PosiFARM is one of dozens of environmental initiatives supported by this Italian company, which was created in 2020 to fill a perceived gap by providing accurate digital tools, including integrated dashboards, to enable businesses to measure, reduce, and offset their environmental impact. 

The spark of the idea behind the creation of Green Future Project came when its founder, Pietro Pasolini, was in Ecuador, back in the days when he worked principally as a documentarist and photographer. Sent to chart the work of conservation NGO Fundación Jocotoco, he soon realised that while organisations like this were doing important work on the ground, and plenty of individuals and businesses around the world were keen to support them, the existing tools for connecting the two and maintaining that connection through the life of a conservation or regeneration project were far from perfect.

Today, Green Future Project has evolved into an integrated Group, bringing together strategic consultancy, technological solutions and regenerative environmental projects within a single end-to-end approach. Once a decarbonisation plan is in place, GFP connects companies with certified environmental projects to address residual emission through the purchase of carbon credits. Its Climate Action platform also allows them to monitor the project they support, follow their impact over time and communicate their contribution transparently. 

But Green Future Project’s portfolio extends beyond certified carbon projects. It also connects interested parties with smaller, science-backed restoration and conservation projects like PosiFARM that are chosen, in the words of Communication & Marketing Manager Claudia Morandi, “because we have a long-standing rapport with them and know them to be serious NGOs doing valuable conservation work”. In addition to land- and marine-based conservation and regeneration initiatives, and renewable energy projects, Green Future Project is also becoming increasingly involved in community-based work such as the Selva de Urundel project, which, beyond forest and biodiversity preservation, also trains local fire brigades to safeguard the area and establishes community orchards.

Closer to Positano, local communities have also become enthusiastically involved in helping to save and regenerate their offshore Posidonia oceanica prairies. “One of the lovely things about this project”, explains another member of the Marketing team, Maria Juliana Parra, “is that people living along the shores of the Bay of Naples, and further south along the coast of the Cilento, gather ‘sea olives’ when they wash ashore in the spring and spontaneously bring them to the laboratory. People in this part of southern Italy take an immense pride in their territory”.

You can find out more about the PosiFARM Posidonia oceanica regeneration initiative and the work of Green Future Project here.

Photos courtesy of Parco Sommerso di Gaiola