Gondolieri Sommozzatori Divisione Artiglio di Venezia, the volunteer diving group of the city’s gondoliers, has joined the “SeaClear 2.0 For Venice Community of Practice” (CoP) and adhered to the EU Mission Ocean and Waters Charter.
This group was founded in 2018 by gondoliers Stefano Vio and Alessandro Zuffi and operates alongside the Associazione Gondolieri di Venezia, the city’s gondoliers’ association. Its volunteers dive in Venice’s canals to clear waste from the seabed and reduce the legacy of pollution of our channels, through a project called “Canali Puliti”. Their dives have led to the removal of 42 tons of marine litter, including approximately 2200 tyres. Among the volunteers supporting Gondolieri Sub are also a number of female gondoliers, a rare presence in a profession still largely associated with men, who contribute to the group’s diving and clean-up operations.
The path towards this adhesion began at VLPF’s annual International Workshop on Marine Litter Monitoring, Removal and Blue Circular Economy, in which two members of Gondolieri Sub took part. It was through this exchange that the value and scale of their work was fully appreciated, paving the way for their entry into both the CoP and the Charter.
The “SeaClear 2.0 For Venice Community of Practice” is the network of local organisations that VLPF sets in place and activates to share information and cooperate on tackling marine litter in Venice and its lagoon, bringing together NGOs, SMEs, civil society groups, rowing clubs etc. It was established as part of the Horizon Europe project SeaClear 2.0, itself part of the wider EU Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters.
The NGO has also brought Canali Puliti into the Mission Ocean and Waters Charter, the European Commission’s public register of ongoing and planned actions that contribute to the Mission’s objectives for 2030: protecting and restoring marine and freshwater ecosystems, preventing and eliminating pollution of the ocean, seas and waters, and making the blue economy carbon-neutral and circular. The Charter currently counts over 1,600 registered actions from public and private stakeholders. Canali Puliti was registered with the support of VLPF under the citizen engagement and communities of practice actors, with coverage of the Mediterranean basin, and is listed as an ongoing action through 2030. As a member, Gondolieri Sub will now be part of a dedicated European network.
Elisabetta Balzi, Acting Senior Directorate-General for Research & Innovation at the European Commission, was present to hand out the certificate marking their formal entry into the EU Mission Charter.
The VLPF team is delighted to welcome Gondolieri Sub into both the CoP and the Charter. We are glad to serve once more as ambassadors for the Mission Ocean and Waters in our region, and in our city in particular, and to see gondolier associations rooted in tradition join the effort to preserve a UNESCO World Heritage site alongside VLPF.
