|
How It
All Started
www.noplasticplanet.org
It all
started back in 1996 with a friendly lunch around the Cap d’Antibes in France. One of the most beautiful
places in the French Riviera and home to Herve
Guitard. One day, while he and his girlfriend of the
time were on their way to lunch when, while exiting
the car, they noticed the extraordinary amount of
garbage littering the beach and sea right there in
front of the restaurant. The girlfriend remarked,
and justly so, how incredible it is to see this kind
of filth on one of the priciest pieces of real
estate in the world. It was a shock, to say the
least, more like a slap in the face which woke up
Mr. Guitard.
The
next day he took it upon himself to clean it up.
With a crappy little dinghy, an old wet suit and
barely there diving equipment he set out to clean up
the area they had seen the day before. But as he
started, it was evident there would be no end to his
day. It wasn’t JUST what they had seen getting out
of the car, it was the entire sea bed within eyes
view and after many subsequent dives in the area it
turned out to be stretching from the Cap d’Antibes
on both sides from Antibes to Cannes!
Along
these beaches are some of the most prestigious
private beaches in the world. Seeing what a good
business opportunity this could be, Herve decided to
propose his “cleaning services” to all the private
beaches in the area. It started out good, the first
4 or 5 beaches agreed to hire his services of
cleaning the “under water “ part of their beaches
for a modest fee. But soon he came to a beach where
the owner’s response was “No. Why should I pay you
when it’s not my responsibility. It’s the Town
Halls problem. Let them clean it up!”
So,
next Herve visited the Town Hall of Antibes to find
out if indeed it was their responsibility and if SO,
why weren’t they doing anything about it. The Town
Hall said, “No, it’s not us, it’s the Prefectures’
problem.” So off he went to the city of Grasse to
the Prefecture to ask the same question. “Oh no,
it’s not us,” they replied. “It’s the responsibility
of the French State. You should talk to Paris.”
Starting to feel a bit frustrated at this point, and
rightfully so, Herve did get in touch with Paris and
found out basically that no one was willing to claim
responsibility for the “bottom of the sea.”
The
European Blue Flag, given out to all beaches and
marinas in Europe IF they meet the criteria for
cleanliness doesn’t state that the sea beds are
included. So not only did it become apparent that
Herve was going to have to go up against the private
owners of the beaches, but also the town of Antibes,
Cannes, Nice, etc… AND the prefecture of the state
in which these coastal towns are located, AND the
officials in Paris AND the European Blue Flag
itself. The fight was on!
Well,
for a lone citizen who is now facing a great
challenge, he took things in order. In April 1996,
along with a concerned group of sailors and divers,
he created a non-profit, volunteer association,
Avenir Mediterranee – Save Our Seas, devoted
specifically to cleaning the bottom of the sea in
the area where people spend holiday. For this to
become a reality the cleaning process had to begin.
How to clean in an ecological way was the next
question. Trawling (dragging a net behind a boat) or
the use of a vacuum system, two methods already in
use for deep sea examination, would cause
irreversible damage to the seabed. At this point, he
found that the only ecological way to clean is to
dive down and manually pick them up. Through this
action the “Dustbin Men of the Sea” were born!
He
recruited every diver he knew, involved the police
and schools. He contacted the medias, radio and TV,
and began organizing large scale operations of clean
ups from Villefranche to Cannes. Avenir
Mediterranee began being present at the Underwater
Film Festival in Juan les Pins, the Salon Nautique
in Paris, Voiles d’Antibes , and many other marine
related conventions. He staged fundraising events
and publicity stunts. He began standing outside the
town halls with the TV reporters and cameras, PILES
of underwater garbage, just waiting for the Mayor to
show up for work in the morning. The pressure was
on.
He was
in contact from everyone in the small, but
prestigious, town of Antibes all the way up to the
Minister of Environment herself, Dominique Voirnet ,
yet NO ONE would claim responsibility for the sea
beds, yet everyone agreed that something had to be
done.
He
began petitioning citizens and writing multiple
letters to the European Blue Flag to get them to
include in the criteria of clean beaches the
cleaning of the sea beds as well. He began to
accumulate numerous celebrities, personalities,
musicians, artists and scientists to help in this
battle.
In
1998 he acquired the classic Dundee Pied’Bouee, a
75ft wooden ketch from Bretagne , which was
restored, as much as a small non profit can restore,
with the aid of dozens of volunteers and the
sponsorship from “International “ for all the paint
and supplies, multiple shipyards and carpenters,
“Sony” for all the underwater camera equipment,
“Beuchat” for all the diving equipment and even a
small financial donation from “Coca Cola France.”
With this vessel he started mapping the areas of
underwater dumps using divers and GPS devices.
In
1999 Pied’Bouee arrived on the island of Corsica and
for the next year Avenir Mediterranee launched the
project “No Plastic Planet,” the replacement of
supermarket plastic bags for recycled paper bags or
reusable bags. This became initiated through
participation at “Festventu”, the Festival of the
Wind in Calvi. With the signatures of every mayor on
Corsica, every nationalist group and concerned
citizens, in 2003 Corsica passed a law banning the
importation and use of all plastic sacks on the
island and now sell their own “green” bags in all
their stores. Bravo Corsica. And thanks to Avenir
Med for planting that seed.
And
that’s how it all started.
© 2011 avenir mediterranee - Save Our Seas, Inc. - All Rights
Reserved.
Website by
DreamWeb
|
