Photography Exhibition: A Boat of Respectful Age,
Mitja Zupančič

Hay tres clases de hombres,
los vivos, los muertos y
los que navegan.

As an old saying goes: there are three kinds of men: The living, the dead and those who sail the sea. Mitja belongs to this third kind when he catches motives with his camera and writes down impressions created under the sails while listening to music composed by Adriatic waves.

Because sea is the love of his life, he is a man of terra marique and he knows how to approach the maritime heritage of Paško Filipi and the sons of Korčula who were the ones to introduce »gajeta1« on the island of Murter. Mitja can feel the breeze by which »gajeta falkona2« is caught on the open sea, he makes friends with »krčki guc3 « and »rovinjska batana4 «. While studying three autochthonous Slovene vessels called čupa, ščifa and tonera, he has an opportunity to relive the thousand years old maritime history together with Slovene people from Križ5 near Trieste.

Because his soul belongs to sailing, he and his friends often sail to terra incognita somewhere around the islands of Vis, Svetac, Brusnik, Biševo and Palagruža.

Among other things Mitja Zupančič is also the author of the book Lighthouses on the Adriatic, a member of the World Lighthouse Society, a lecturer of the educational series Safety on Board, a journalist writing for the Slovene nautical magazine Navtika Plus, a director and a scriptwriter of seven documentaries Faces of the Adriatic, a publisher of maritime literature and a winner of the Croatian Top Journalist Award Golden Pen.

The fishing village of Komiža inspired him to start studying and researching the history of fishery, traditional vessels and customs. And when he draws a parallel between the oldest preserved document about a regatta on the old continent (Liber Comiciae, 1593) from Komiža to Palagruža and the beginnings of the sport sailing, which are nowadays reflected in technologically most sophisticated and humanly most demanding series Volvo Ocean Race, new horizons open up, things get real and comprehensible, contributions gain authenticity and persuasiveness.

Wood is eternal and the old boat is alive. It rises from the ashes and that’s where it returns. In-between the boat accompanies its master and lives with the family bearing its name ex genere in generem.

Old boats are like traditional Dalmatian music – a direct link to our predecessors who sang the way they lived and they lived the way they sang. A wooden boat keeps the memories fresh in its body and its soul.
Navigare necesse est!

1 A typical old wooden fishing boat from Dalmatia, Croatia.
2 A special type of »gajeta« which was built in Komiža on the island of Vis, Croatia.
3 A traditional wooden fishing boat from the island of Krk, Croatia
4 Another traditional wooden boat used for fishing from Rovinj, Croatia.
5 S. Croce in Italian

Ballast water management system for Adriatic Sea protection

PARTNERSHIP

The BALMAS project is a strategic project within the IPA Adriatic Programme. The partnership consists of 15 partners from 6 countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Italy), with Institute for water of the Republic of Slovenia as a Lead partner. The total budget of the project is 7,1 million euro of which 6 million euro is co-funded by the European Union. The project started in 2013 and will last until September 2016.

PROJECT SUMMERY

Ballast water is recognized in the world as one of four global problems regarding the pollution and danger for the oceans and seas. This is the main reason why International Maritime Organization declared International Convention on the Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments in 2004. Ballast water is the sea water that high-capacity ships use to insure safe navigation and stability. At places of cargo loading and unloading in ports, they discharge or take up ballast water. Every year ten million tons of ballast water is being discharged in the Adriatic Sea. It is estimated that, during one year period, around 4500 various organisms are being transported worldwide via ballast water.

Ballast water transferred by vessels has been recognized as a prominent vector of harmful aquatic and pathogens species. The presence of harmful aquatic and pathogens species in ballast waters discharged into Adriatic ports has been proven, and their negative impacts have already been recorded. Adriatic countries have recognised that the BW issue is very critical and complex, and that key barriers to a viable solution are a lack of data and a lack of knowledge. Data and knowledge in the frame of BALMAS project will enable Adriatic countries to implement ballast water management Convention requirements through a common ballast water management plan, and provide support to responsible authorities for faster and effective decision making with a decision support system.

The general BALMAS objective is to establish a common cross-border system, which will link all researchers, experts and responsible national authorities from Adriatic countries in order to avoid unwanted risks to the environment from the transfer of harmful aquatic organisms and pathogens – HAOP. This will be achieved through control and management of ships’ ballast waters and sediments. Further, long-term effective ballast water management in the Adriatic will be set at the cross-border level utilizing this project’s related knowledge and technology.

Project activities cover preparation of comprehensive analyse of the current state in the Adriatic ports through the port baseline surveys in 12 Adriatic ports (Koper, Trieste, Venezia, Bari, Ancona, Pula, Rijeka, Split, Šibenik, Ploče, Bar and Durres), development of monitoring plans for ports, establishment of early warning system in the ports, development of ballast water decision support system and ballast water management plan for Adriatic sea.
One of the important project goals of the BALMAS project is also to raise awareness among different target groups in all participating countries on the problem with the ballast water and to present common solutions for ballast water management in the Adriatic Sea.