NIREAS – The new traveller of Archipelagos
Anastasia Miliou - 30/10/2008
After months of hard work and with the invaluable help of the organisation’s friends, Nireas, Archipelagos has begun scientific expeditions in the Aegean Sea with the new research boat.
Nireas first headed towards Samos, but they also travelled to Arki and Marathi islets where Archipelagos maintains research stations. These stations were then prepared for the upcoming research planned for the autumn and winter.
As a result of an independent study carried out by Archipelagos the Arki islet complex has already been established as a “Permanent Wildlife Refuge”. Our primary aim for the region is the ground truthing of satellite imagery on the areas covered by Posidonia seagrass beds. This non-profit effort by Archipelagos has been running for the last 2 years in cooperation with the Italian company “Planetek” and the European Space Agency. Archipelagos aims to develop a protocol for determining the position of sea grass beds in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, so that fishing grounds can therefore be defined.
