🌊 Ocean Saving Art 🎨
Art Elevating Conservation 🌍
The Mediterranean is one of the most beautiful yet overfished oceans 🐟, falling victim to commercial trawlers whose heavy nets scrape the sea bottom raw 🌊❌, destroying fragile ecosystems 🪸.
Though trawling has been outlawed along coastlines ⚖️, it remains lucrative and difficult to police 🚨.
(Paolo Fanciulli, aka Paolo The Fisherman, next to sculpted marble blocks waiting to be lowered into the sea as part of his project)
Now, conservationists in Tuscany are using art to save the sea 🎭🌍.
They are sinking sculpted blocks of marble 🪨 just off the shore, creating creative barriers to deter trawler nets 🚢, provide artificial reefs 🌱🐠, and generate eco-tourism 🌎📸.
The project, called the “House of Fish” 🏠🐟, is the brainchild of Italian fisherman Paolo Fanciulli. He received 100 donated 15-ton marble blocks from the Carrara Quarry, famed for providing marble to Michelangelo 🎨🖌️.
Sculptors from around the world 🌐 volunteered their talents, and as of 2021, 39 massive carvings had been submerged along the Tuscany coastline 🌊.
This massive effort has completely stopped the trawling 🛑, bringing the area back to life 🌱. More fish 🐠, lobsters 🦞, and even dolphins 🐬 have returned to the coast—some for the first time in decades.
It has also become an underwater museum 🏛️🌊.
The extraordinary success of the “House of Fish” project has attracted worldwide attention 🌍✨ and is paving the way to save even more ocean life 🌊💙.
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