Paolo Cuman points to a rusty boat, half-sunk in Venice’s lagoon. “It has been there for years,” he says, laughing. “When I manage to have her removed, I’ll open a bottle of good wine.” Hunting abandoned boats is a hobby for Cuman, the coordinator of the Consulta della Laguna Media, a grassroots group monitoring the health of the lagoon. Once he’s found the boats, he maps them and pressures the authorities to remove them.
For decades, the Venetian lagoon – the largest wetland in the Mediterranean – has been used as a landfill by people wanting to get rid of their boats. An estimated 2,000 abandoned vessels are in the lagoon, scattered over an area of about 55,000 hectares (135,900 acres). Some lie beneath the surface, others poke above the water and some are stranded on the barene – the lowlands that often disappear at high tide.
The wrecks are a threat to other vessels – a boat’s engine may be damaged if it passes over them. But they are an even bigger threat to the ecosystem, leaking chemicals, fuel and microplastics as the boats disintegrate in the water.
But they are also ocean actors in their own right, home to huge colonies of marine life. They are victims, too, of the same threats faced by the ocean: invasive species eating away at their hulls, acidification slowly causing them to disintegrate. Shipwrecks are mirrors showing us not just who we’ve been, but what our future holds on a fast-heating globe.
The pull of these wrecks has been a boon for science, shedding light on a part of the planet that has been shrouded in mystery. “If shipwrecks are the sirens that lure us into the depths, they encourage exploration into what truly is the last frontier of the planet,” says James Delgado of shipwreck company Search Inc. “A frontier that we don’t really know much about.”
Chris Michael and Laura Paddison, Seascape editors
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Q&A
What is the Shipwrecked series?
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There are 3m lost vessels under the waves, and with new technology finally enabling us to explore them, Guardian Seascape is dedicating a series to what is being found: the secret histories, hidden treasures and the lessons they teach. From glimpses into storied wrecks such as the Titanic and Ernest Shackleton’s doomed Endurance, to slave vessels such as the Clotilda or Spanish galleons lined with plundered South American gold that confront us with our troubled history, shipwrecks are time capsules, holding clues to who we are.
But they are also ocean actors in their own right, home to huge colonies of marine life. They are victims, too, of the same threats faced by the ocean: invasive species eating away at their hulls, acidification slowly causing them to disintegrate. Shipwrecks are mirrors showing us not just who we’ve been, but what our future holds on a fast-heating globe.
The pull of these wrecks has been a boon for science, shedding light on a part of the planet that has been shrouded in mystery. “If shipwrecks are the sirens that lure us into the depths, they encourage exploration into what truly is the last frontier of the planet,” says James Delgado of shipwreck company Search Inc. “A frontier that we don’t really know much about.”
Chris Michael and Laura Paddison, Seascape editors
Authorities seldom remove these wrecks; bureaucracy is slow and dealing with the city’s boat graveyards is a long way down the priority list. That’s why a group of boating enthusiasts and environmentalists, including Cuman, are trying to force action.
On a hot summer day, the lagoon, which is only a few miles away from the crowded streets of Venice, feels like a world away. Sailboats zigzag across the water, cormorants fly past and flamingos wade in the shallows, while fish leap in and out of the water.
Only the wrecks of abandoned vessels mar the scene. For the most part they are small, low-powered motorboats, or burci – transport boats widely used in Venice. These are “owned by ordinary people”, says Cuman.
He spots the relic of a vessel: “See this fishing boat? I remember when it used to bring the fish to Mestre [his neighbourhood] 40 years ago! Looks like it has been discarded for three decades at least,” he says.
The practice of illegally abandoning vessels in the lagoon dates back to the 1950s, when trucks began to replace boats for commercial purposes. “In the past, the large shipping companies abandoned the burci here, creating boat cemeteries,” says Giovanni Cecconi, president of Venice Resilience Lab, an environmental group that has contributed to mapping the lagoon.
“There are boats that have been abandoned for 20 or 30 years that are in very bad condition,” says Davide Poletto, executive director of the Venice Lagoon Plastic Free organisation. These release chemical contami
