A Call from the Heart of Cilento
At the end of an intense week spent between sea and Mediterranean lands, a sense of responsibility and hope grows within us. The Mare Nostrum, a millennial cradle of civilizations and a treasure trove of biodiversity, is urgently calling us: plastic pollution, overfishing, climate change, and economic imbalances are compromising its natural equilibrium and threatening the prosperity of its communities. Yet, from these very coasts, from Cilento, a new energy for regeneration is igniting.
Save The Ocean 2025 — Pollica Cilento
SCIENCE as a Beacon for the Mediterranean
At the heart of the global challenge to protect the Mediterranean and the health of our seas, science emerges as the indispensable beacon guiding the path toward a sustainable future. Scientists, with their rigor and passion, lay the foundations for effective policies, educational programs, and innovative models capable of responding to environmental emergencies.
We have brought science into the classroom, as a tool — not an opinion — to understand the health of the planet, human life, and communities.
Led by Dr. Gian Marco Luna, Director of CNR IRBIM, we received a clear and urgent message: marine biodiversity is the fulcrum of life on Earth, and its protection is essential to face the challenges posed by climate change, pollution, and the growing threat of invasive alien species that deeply alter ecosystem balances. Luna emphasizes how climate science must rigorously and visionarily guide adaptation and mitigation strategies, highlighting the need for integrated actions that synergistically involve both marine and terrestrial ecosystems to safeguard the planet’s resilience and the future of coastal communities.
Digital Innovation and Human Health
Giusy Oliva and the SEED team from the University of Salerno, led by Professor Vincenzo Naddeo, presented an extraordinary innovation: the “Digital Twin of the Mediterranean.” This system, leveraging satellite data, environmental sensors, and artificial intelligence, enables real-time monitoring of the sea’s health, identification of pollution sources, and supports coastal communities in sustainable management decisions. It is concrete proof of how technology and science can become fundamental allies in protecting marine ecosystems.
Once again, we placed human health at the center, deeply intertwined with that of the planet. In this context, Professor Giovanni Quaranta introduced the HOHLI (Healthy Oceans, Healthy Lives) project, exploring the link between marine ecosystems, food quality, and longevity. Through the One Health approach, the project integrates environmental, clinical, and behavioral data to develop innovative solutions promoting individual and collective well-being, underscoring the importance of a sustainable Mediterranean Diet and a healthy marine environment.
Fertility, Epigenetics, and Regeneration
The contribution of Dr. Luigi Montano, with EcoFoodFertility, highlighted a crucial aspect: the health of the oceans directly reflects human health. By studying the impact of environmental pollution on fertility, Montano uses science as a bridge between the environment and collective well-being, promoting educational models and agroecological practices that protect fertility and the health of future generations. Nutritionist Marianna Rizzo, through the epigenetic hair test, demonstrated how our bodies are now contaminated and threatened by environmental agents. This analysis made it possible to show how our food choices and the surrounding environment profoundly affect genetic expression, longevity, and quality of life.
These testimonies demonstrate how human and planetary health are intertwined, in an indissoluble balance between man and nature.
The Knowledge of the Land: Regenerative Agriculture
This same balance underpins the work of IUAV Venice, where Giulia Lucertini and the team led by Professor Francesco Musco, also during the Venice Climate Week, provided invaluable scientific support to the technical table involving mayors and administrations in defining innovative and participatory coastal governance — crucial for the birth of shared paths towards the protection of the Mediterranean and the creation of resilient and sustainable Blue Communities.
But science alone is not enough: it needs hands, perspectives, and lived EXPERIENCE.
In Cilento, knowledge intertwines with the daily experience of those who inhabit and care for the sea and land every day. Here, embodied knowledge takes shape, made of ancient gestures and future visions.
With Vittorio, our great master, and with Antonio, Erminio, and Giorgio, we lived and understood the sea, guided by guardians of ancient knowledge renewed every night off the Cilento coasts. A deep awareness links the work of fishermen to that of farmers: caring for the sea also means protecting the land from which everything originates.
In the Cilento landscape, the relationship between land and sea manifests daily through agricultural practices that weave together memory, innovation, and respect for the environment.
In this context, our great master Beppe Cilento, founder of the Nuovo Cilento Cooperative, emerges as a pillar of the agricultural and social fabric of the territory. Regenerative agriculture, promoted by Peppe, is based on concrete practices that respect soil fertility, biodiversity, and the resilience of agricultural systems.
Regenerative agricultural practices in Cilento — such as key lines, dry stone walls, and ecological corridors — respect the landscape and biodiversity, promote water retention, and prevent erosion. Fields are cultivated without chemicals, giving back to the land more than is taken. In Beppe’s daily work, every gesture cares for the land and sea: it is not aesthetics, but ecology that requires time, hands, and vision.
Peppe Cilento’s daily work teaches us that every gesture counts: caring for olive trees, keylines, ecological corridors, and dry stone walls are not aesthetic whims but concrete practices requiring time, dedication, and knowledge. These actions protect the soil, retain water, and regenerate biodiversity. All this affects the health of the sea, which does not originate from the shores but from the mountains. In Cilento, regeneration starts from the land to reach the sea, offering a tangible model of harmony between nature, culture, and community. Thus, Cilento becomes a living laboratory, offering a concrete and inspiring model for the future of Blue Communities.
Identity, Exploration, and Collective Action
In a time when regenerating land and sea is only possible by transforming economic models and our lifestyle, a fundamental question arises:
Who do we want to be? What role do we want to assume, as individuals and as a community?
Consciousness is the starting point: it is where the vision of a different, fairer, more aware, and more humane future is born.
During the Climate Shapers Bootcamp in Pollica, the active presence of Alex Bellini was a reference point for all of us. Not only an explorer and communicator, but a true catalyst of awareness and action.