Greenpeace have been making a splash with huge boulders to stop trawlers from scraping the seafloor clean of everything:
As it happened: Greenpeace blocks destructive fishing in the North Sea | Greenpeace UK
Artists have been doing the same…
Off the Tuscan coast:
With its totems, architectural statues and anthropomorphic monoliths, La Casa dei Pesci (“House of Fish”) looks like an ancient civilisation reclaimed by the sea. In fact, it is an underwater museum that can be visited by scuba divers, and is part of an ingenious strategy to prevent the annihilation of local marine life.
The ingenious underwater ‘city’ that is helping to stop trawlers from overfishing the Med
The underwater sculptures create both a physical barrier for nets and a unique underwater museum. The sculptures are placed in a circle, 4m apart, with an obelix at the centre carved by the Italian artist Massimo Catalani. Emily Young provided four sculptures, each weighing 12 tons, she calls “guardians”; nearby lies a mermaid by the young artist Aurora Vantaggiato. Lippi has contributed 17 sculptures representing Siena’s contrade, or medieval districts.
Underwater museum: how ‘Paolo the fisherman’ made the Med’s strangest sight | Fishing | The Guardian
Off the Côte d’Azur:
“I think that there’s a danger when we look at the ocean, it looks robust and powerful, untouchable,” says [Artist] Jason deCaires Taylor. “When what’s happening beneath the water is unprecedented, it’s extremely fragile.”
Cannes, France, Opens Its Stunning Underwater Museum | Architectural Digest
Off the coast of Mexico:
The Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA) features more than 500 submerged sculptures installed across a marine park covering 420 square metres of seabed, which actively promotes coral habitat and reef recovery. “It is named a museum for a simple reason,” deCaires Taylor said. “Every day we dredge, pollute and overfish our oceans, while museums are places of preservation, of conservation, and of education. They are places where we keep objects that have great value to us. Our oceans are sacred.”
Sunken sculptures help rewild marine ecosystems | World Economic Forum
Artist turns seafloor into art by creating underwater museums – CBS News