On February 2, the World Wetlands Day will be celebrated once again the Oristanese wetlands region. To recall the central role of wetlands in addressing climate and environmental crisis and to raise awareness of the importance of these basins especially in this west coast side of Sardinia, within the Maristanis project.
Nature and culture
Nature and culture
S’Urachi is a journey through time and into the unfolding mystery, an exercise for the the mind and its focus to the wonder of history, the role it has in the present, in the possible paths of the future. The low and gray sky envelops the countryside of San Vero Milis, giving it an atmosphere of a moorland.
To celebrate the World Wetlands Day 2021, the MEDSEA Foundation (http://www.medseafoundation.org) organizes the competition "Terre d'Acqua" imagine the wetlands’ future dedicated to the secondary schools of the municipalities involved in the Maristanis project
Straddling the board, Nikole observes the gray limbo where the waves are born, crushed in the perspective by the horizon. The Mistral sweeps the western coasts of Sardinia, the sky is a whim of blue and dark, low clouds. The series melts into a compact lump of crests that advance indistinctly and mount in moving walls on the peak. Nikole lets the first pass, too impetuous and steep, but turns the table and stretches out on it.
It is impossible to pass through. A line of barriers prevents the car to from reaching the last section of the 49, a straight road leading to the fishpond and the Sassu pump. The disaster of S’Ena Arrubia was announced along the road by the fields in the Arborea plain. Hundreds of birds have settled on the drowned crops, as if they had looked for a hotel waiting for the murky waters to stop overwhelming the pond.
For Sara Mirai, it was a layoff in the world of mining that opened the door that giving access to the cosmetics market: "I worked for a big multinational. When this was absorbed by another giant, many contracts were not renewed. The idea of venturing into the world of cosmetics was pure reaction".
Lights and shadows compete for the church of Santa Sofia, shrouded in the morning silence. The sun heats the sandstone of the high bell tower, enhances it against the blue sky. The facade remains in shadow, the Gothic rose window circled in red bricks stands out, a great eye on the symmetry of the doors. Nobody walks the streets of the center of San Vero Milis, one of the richest, when it comes to history, among the municipalities that touch the Maristanis wetlands.
“The truth / lies / in nuances”. “A man is always a victim of his own truths. When he has recognized them, he is unable to detach himself”. And again: "Sometimes a man stumbles upon the truth, but in most cases he will get up and continue on his way". Thus begins, with Bukowski, Camus and Churchill, among others, the the FAI (Italian Environmental Fund) Autumn Days in Arborea, dedicated "to the search for historical truth". In front of the town hall, two volunteers alternately read the aphorisms at the last turn of the visitors.
It is almost as if the scrub opens only at one’s passage, and is then ready to close itself again, like water. A swarm of small fleeing birds rises from the low and compact tangle. They spread out in the clear autumn sky to settle and hide together in another point in the sea of bushes. The Mistral, which is used to beat furiously here, today is only in the shrubs, forced towards the hinterland as if it were a hairdo in a face. Then the blanket thins out, the old house of Don Efisio Carta appears before the Spanish tower, and the bright sea stretched to the horizon.
The tallest body of the Sassu drainage pump, with all its rationalist modernity, always looks like a submarine in the act of leaving the surface and sliding into the abyss.
Although busy with fishing, the gray heron retains the solemnity of the border sentinel. Graceful, elegant and austere, he observes the canoe passing its position on the rock and entering the lagoon.
The flock does not show itself with the flicker of a fish in the air. Even in the gray water moved by the Mistral wind Giovanni senses a movement, a whirlpool. He stops the boat where the Merceddì pond touches the gates of the bridge. Beyond the slits of the old structure the waves of the open sea beat insistently. "This point is good," says Giovanni. Then he raises from the bottom of the boat, a brand new and blue "ciu", the first head of the nets, tied to a float. The "Margiaga", crasis of Marica, Gianluca and Gabriele, names of Giovanni's sons, swiftly starts on the rough surface of the pond.
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