To ensure the sustainable management of marine litter, in particular abandoned fishing nets, in the Adriatic Sea, Healthy Seas and DeFishGear project joined forces at the end of April 2014.

While preparing to clean up derelict fishing gear from all reefs and some selected wrecks, the two organizations are also working to raise awareness and prevent future pollution.

For this reason, DeFishGear is organizing a series of events on the problem of marine litter in our seas.

On the 12-13 of May 2014, in Athens, one of the Greek partners to the DeFishGear project – Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development (MIO-ECSDE), organized the “Mediterranean Conference on Combating Marine Litter in the Adriatic MacroRegion”, which brought together a wide range of stakeholders, from policy makers to NGOs, industry representatives and local authorities, to exchange views and experiences on the implementation of different measures (prevention, reduction, removal) to address marine litter effectively.

The welcome address and opening remarks were done by Mr. Pelegrinis, Rector of University of Athens, Mr. Maniatis, Minister of Environment of Greece, Mr. Potocnik EC Commissioner for Environment and Mr. Krzan, DeFishGear Coordinator.

On behalf of Healthy Seas, Mr. Edi Kraus, member of the board of Aquafil spa and general manager of Julon/Aquafil, presented the embracing opportunities of recycling marine litter for the production of high quality products, explaining to the public our ‘Journey from Waste to Wear’.

For more details, please download the official Press Release.