And the sun was shining

On 22 April 2021, World Earth Day celebrations were held all over the world, the largest awareness-raising event for the protection of the planet, now in its 51st edition..

The creator of Earth Day was American activist John McConnell who proposed in 1969, during the San Francisco UNESCO Conference, a day to dedicate to the Earth to raise awareness of the need to preserve ecosystems and thus all forms of life on our planet.

This year the theme of World Earth Day was “restore your Earth” and who better than Life Redune to take the opportunity to restore a little piece of our land?

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The Life Redune team invited its most active stakeholders to the naturalistic oasis of Vallevecchia, one of the project’s intervention sites, for a day full of activities.

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Ca’ Foscari University, lead partner of the Life Redune project, welcomed the participants, presenting the project and its progress and showing live examples of dune habitats.

 

The project partner SELC coop. gave a concrete demonstration of the environmental engineering works by “reconstructing”, in front of everyone’s eyes, a dune profile using only sand from the sandy shore in front of the project and beached material to reinforce the foot of the dune. At the same time, informative and dissuasive signs were installed along the equipped paths of Vallevecchia in preparation for the next tourist-bathing season.

 

The Veneto Region, the project partner, presented to the representatives of the Participating Municipalities – Eraclea, San Michele al Tagliamento and Cavallino Treporti – the Conservation Measures of the Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) of the Natura 2000 Network to be integrated in the beach maintenance activities.

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EPC srl, a project partner, has been able to reinforce its collaboration with the local associations with which it will continue to carry out environmental education activities in 2021: the Auxiliary Coast Guard of the Delta Tagliamento, Legambiente Veneto Orientale Circolo “Gerutto Pascutto” and the Comitato Foce del Tagliamento, as well as with the Carabinieri Forestali di Portogruaro who will ensure the monitoring of the project’s intervention sites.

 

The tourist operators involvedBibione Mare and Mete Beach – were able, together with the municipalities, to participate in monitoring the socio-economic impact of the project on the tourism sector and to organise the next environmental education trips to the dunes.

 

The presence of Dr. Lucio Panzarin of ISPRA gave the opportunity to talk about the protection of avifauna and in particular the conservation of the Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus), which has returned to nest on the Veneto coast after years of absence.

 

The Centre for Plant and Forest Biodiversity of Veneto Agricoltura, a project partner, together with the staff of the Sistemazioni Idraulico Forestali (SIF) has planned the next autumn planting campaign for dune habitats.

 

Finally, at the end of the event, all participants were able to leave a video-testimony on their motivations for working with Life Redune and the meaning of the project for each of them.