Monitoring and Sustainable Tourism

Blue Project Plemmirio

Blu Plemmirio is a territorial marketing project launched by the AMP Plemmirio aimed at promoting and encouraging the enhancement and protection of the territory. A project that focuses on the spread of a shared environmental culture and the development of an economy and tourism consistent with the objectives of protection of the places. The most immediate objective is to make the concept of certified environmental quality become central to the economic and social fabric of the province.

The companies that have already joined the project identify in the AMP Plemmirio a virtuous example of environmental sustainability. The tour operators of BluPlemmirio are true ambassadors of a positive model of tourism in the area and are aware of the urgency of networking. A network of operators capable of embodying the sustainable model that BluPlemmirio has transformed into a common project. To this end, they are committed to continuously reduce their environmental impacts and to promote sustainable tourism by working synergistically and developing appropriate offers.

Sea Shepherd – Operation Syracuse

The launch of Operation Syracuse in May 2017 marked the fourth consecutive year in which Sea Shepherd volunteers engage in night and daytime patrols of the Plemmirio Marine Reserve, with the aim of helping local officials protect and defend endangered groupers and sea urchins. The campaign is active throughout the year!

The Plemmirio protected area was established in 2004 and covers some 2,500 hectares of Syracuse territory. It is an area whose protection is considered a priority due to poaching and other illegal fishing activities, which have brought the Brown Grouper, sea urchins and countless other species to the brink of extinction in this area.

As always, Sea Shepherd and its volunteers are not only involved in direct action to protect the lives of marine species by bringing to the attention of institutions and the public the illegal activities that take place all the time, but they are also concerned with restoring the natural environmental conditions of the areas in which they operate, carrying out the collection of waste, both domestic and special, that people throw indiscriminately into the sea and onto land, thus polluting the land, water and causing the death by poisoning and suffocation of numerous marine species that come into contact with products derived from oil and industrial production.

The Operation Syracuse campaign saw Sea Shepherd Italy volunteers, in close cooperation with the Guardia di Finanza, the Coast Guard, the Carabinieri, the Italian Police, the Environmental Police and the authorities of the Plemmirio Marine Protected Area, engaged in the defence of sea urchins and brown groupers. As many as four divers were caught red-handed while illegally fishing for sea urchins. A large amount of fishing equipment was also confiscated, including nets, longlines and fishing rods, all belonging to the poachers who were fishing from the cliffs within the integral reserve area. The campaign is active throughout the year!