published on
06/06/2025
In what ways are animal, human and environmental health connected? How do fragile ecosystems, like the barene of the Venetian lagoon, tell the story of human impact on the planet? Can a photograph capture not just a landscape, but the urgency of conservation?
Since I moved to Venice, I have tried to tell the story of the city and its surrounding from many different perspectives, especially focusing on social and environmental issues.
“Una barena intera” is the title of one of my latest projects, centered on the most vital and fragile habitat of the Venetian lagoon ecosystem. The title roughly translates into, “a whole mudflat”. Indeed, a barena is a mudflat periodically submerged by the tides.
These barene are typical of the Venetian lagoon, formed by sediment deposits carried by rivers, fundamental to the balance of the lagoon itself, because:
- They purify the lagoon’s waters, acting as a natural filter. Through vegetation and natural processes, they help maintain water quality, removing pollutants.
- They host a unique and biodiverse habitat, providing refuge and sustenance for numerous species of flora and fauna. This biodiversity plays a crucial role in maintaining the lagoon’s ecological equilibrium.
However, the Venetian lagoon is currently undergoing severe erosion, exacerbated by the diversion of rivers—now deprived of their sediment contributions—and by the excavation of port channels for commercial purposes.
On the left: Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) (c) F. Coburn, Alinari Archives, Florence.
On the right: mosaic image of a barena shot by Matteo de Mayda in the Venetian Lagoon.
The title of the project, Una barena intera, comes from my idea of bringing a barena, in its entirety, to the exhibition at CAMERA (Centro Italiano di Fotografia) in Turin.
I photographed a barena using a mosaic-like scanning technique over several outings in a small boat in the southern Venetian lagoon.
These lagoon explorations were conducted in collaboration with the NGO, We are Here Venice, as part of the Vital initiatives, emphasising the importance of the interaction between the lagoon’s natural environment and human interventions through a scientific approach. Through its projects, We are Here Venice aims to highlight the fact that the city and lagoon must be considered inseparable elements of a single system – the health of one depends on the protection of the other; the lagoon specifically is custodian and producer of the natural capital that supports the life of Venice.
Jane da Mosto and Eleonora Sovrani, Founder and Art Director of We are Here Venice, explain the history of barene better than I do:
“Venice’s lagoon was originally characterised by a few navigable channels amidst marshy, shallow, extensive and constantly shifting sandbanks and mudflats. During the heyday of the Venetian Republic as a maritime power, the channels started silting up, making navigation difficult for ships to travel between the Adriatic and San Marco so, starting in the mid XV Century, the principal rivers had to be diverted away from the lagoon.”
On the left: Cirl Bunting (Emberiza cirlus) (c) F. Coburn, Alinari Archives, Florence.
On the right: mosaic image of a barena shot by Matteo de Mayda in the Venetian Lagoon.
Consequently, the lagoon changed its nature, from being a sediment accumulator to a sediment exporter with significant implications for the mud forms, water depths and associated shallow water ecology.
Jane da Mosto and Eleonora Sovrani
–Founder and Art Director, We are here Venice
“Nowadays, sediments are churned up by passing ships and then flushed out to sea by the tide or they settle and clog up the channel which then needs to be dredged. Other trends like rising water levels caused by climate change exacerbate this imbalance and unless actions are taken now, the lagoon will soon become a bay of the sea.“, Da Mosto and Sovrani explain.
To document this fragile environment, I worked closely with ornithologist, Alessandro Sartori, who explained to me how bird censuses provide essential insights into the health of the barene.
The Venetian lagoon is home to over 200,000 waterbirds spanning 60 different species, making it the most important area in Italy—and one of the most significant in the Mediterranean basin—for bird wintering, migration, and breeding.
Photograph by Matteo de Mayda
Da Mosto and Sovrani from We are Here Venice further explain:
“Waterbirds breed, feed and roost on the salt marsh and mudflats, which also act as refuges for shore birds and feeding sites for a wide range of landbirds, from birds of prey to small songbirds. The birds of the saltmarsh, like the plants, have distinctive adaptive characteristics honed by an environment at the very edge of land, water and sky.”
“Critically, shore birds – and the animals they eat – are dependent on the gentle gradient of the intertidal mudflats between the saltmarsh edge and the shallows. This is one of the most difficult areas to restore and maintain in the lagoon today due to erosion by the strong waves created by boat traffic and wind. But where the barene cover larger areas, there is space behind the marsh edge for tidal pools and creeks which provide these habitats.”
Beside the natural space of the barena, I was interested in representing the rich fauna that the activists from We are here Venice introduced me to. While researching at the Alinari Archives, I discovered a fascinating series of bird photographs by F.Coburn from around 1890, featuring studio reconstructions of their natural habitats. These images, like the birds themselves, embody the idea of migration.
F.Coburn’s project, on a second level, explores migration, as the birds visiting the lagoon disregard borders, arriving to find food or flee from conflicts—such as the war in Ukraine.
Conceptually, it also touches on the fluidity of definitions and boundaries, since barene, by their very nature, are never fixed. They shift with the tides, seasons, and fragmentation. Attempting to capture one in a photograph is, in a sense, a paradox.
The Animal Echo aims to promote individual and collective understanding of animal health and welfare. We bring you insights and opinions from experts across the world. The opinions expressed in The Animal Echo are those of the author (s) and may not necessarily reflect WOAH’s official position.
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