When I was a child, I would often go to the beach during summer Sundays with family, friends, friends of friends and so on. I remember those moments, and today I sincerely regret them. I remember when the “men” went in search of cockles to prepare a nice meal to consume all together in the evening, it was beautiful and there was a high meaning in sharing the “caught” or better “sieved” of the day. I vividly remember picking clams because it was something for everyone, even us children, we just had to dig in the right sand within the first few meters from the shoreline, in the first meters from the shore line. The beach where I usually go to the sea is located on the Italian coast of the middle Adriatic, and in recent years it no longer sees the presence of these beautiful specimens. When today I return to the sea, I try to find these organisms to allow my little cousins ​​to approach marine organisms, see how they are made, explain how they manage to live in the sediment, in this case. I want to share with them the same enthusiasm that I had in exploring. But I cannot. Initially, I thought that this loss was due to the anthropic impact in the form of pollution. I never investigated the issue but today I came to know that the disappearance of Donax trunculus is not due to pollution (which certainly plays its part) but due to another type of anthropic impact. This disappearance is due to nourishment actions done without knowledge of the facts. When we talk about nourishment we refer to the application of new sediment (of disparate origin) on the beaches subjected to erosion. The absence of these organisms is, therefore, due to the nourishment with sediment that has a granulometry that no longer allows the life of juveniles settlement on shore and, therefore, neither the supply of adults more in the open sea. In short, in any case there is human action involved!

Maria Bruno