Island Lab · Pollica · brief
The People's Posidonia
What we built on the Cilento coast, and where it goes next.
July 2026 · with the Future Food Institute and the BLUERA students.
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01 What we saw
The science sits on a shelf
Nothing records any of it. A dragged anchor, a thinning
patch, a bloom. Seen, and then forgotten.
A day with Vittorio
- Forty years of knowing this coast goes home with him.
- The students made a film to grow the demand.
02 The Monitor
One shared picture of the meadow
- ISPRA surveys and Copernicus models, reconciled with what the fleet measures.
- Sharp near a sensor. Honest about the fade in between.
- Owned locally, admissible to science.
03 The fleet
Fishermen become stewards, students their crew
Route
Today's water, one screen.
Monitor
Side-scan and sensors log underneath.
Protect
Flag it. Same-afternoon enforcement.
Predict
The living map, and what protection buys.
04 The demo
The meadow map, live
The Cilento coast as a hex grid: extent, condition, stress. Finish on how much of this should I trust.
Still frame. Click to load, or open the real map.
05 The toolkit
Five working surfaces, all live
Each opens in its own tab and runs in the browser.
06 Proof of concept
Demonstrate the core loop
Feasible
A methodology fishermen and students can run.
Viable
Incentives hold until revenue carries them.
Desirable
People trust it, in person.
Around €100,000 seeds everything that scales after it.
07 Funding
Grants start it. Revenue keeps it alive.
- Education fees and guided trips, already flowing.
- Mooring fees replace anchoring.
- A tourism levy and credit revenue later.
08 The campaign
Into people's hands
A nonna will not open a laptop. The map goes where people already are.
- The schools, where the students who capture the data explain it.
- The Castello, a permanent public view.
- The festival, and the families of the fleet.
09 Where it goes
Protection first. Then restoration.
The sandbox is open. Run Meadow Futures, build an investment play, and see what returns.
The long version lives at tools.islandlab.dev/pollica.