Watertrek joins its partner Le Vieux Bateau du Futur at the maritime festival Escale in Port Vendres from April, 17th to April, 20th, 2026, and will offer a series of activities about seas preservation onboard the historic sailing ship Le Skjoldnaes.
Visit to the pirate ship, join our low-tech café (smoothies bike, solar cookies, etc.), listen to a reading or attend our cultural activities, in addition to the many events offered during this gathering of traditional boats.
Meet us on board starting Friday, right next to… the Belem!
Four Watertrek projects were officially recognized in 2025 by the Ministry of Ecological Transition:
These projects are now listed in the Ministry’s catalog and are accessible to anyone wishing to engage with them.
Our partnership with Skjoldnaes – The Old Boat of the Future – this magnificent wooden sailing ship built in 1936, continues with a new renovation session at the Gruissan shipyard in summer 2025.
Watertrek is proud to join this unique initiative aimed at raising awareness about low-carbon solutions and technologies and protecting the sea. Activities such as pedaling a bike to blend smoothies, baking cookies in a solar oven, using a dynamo-powered projector, and other experiments are being launched to promote energy autonomy, essential for sailors and highly inspiring for people on land.
Everyone is invited to come discover these devices, participate, engage with the crew, and enjoy cultural events organized by the crew during the solidarity Café sessions offered according to the calendar and ports along the southern coast of France, as this year in Banyuls and Frontignan.
A unique project where past and future sail together toward a more respectful and sustainable world, which you are all invited to join, especially by proposing your own activity ideas or by joining the Low-tech coordinators. The dates for the traveling Café visits will be shared on the Skjoldnaes network and Watertrek platforms.
Watertrek is very pleased to join the « Living with Rivers » initiative launched by author Erik Orsenna, feeding its passion for water, rivers and their preservation.
The mission of the "Initiatives for l'Avenir des Grands Fleuves" is to federate project leaders committed to preserving rivers, notably through its label, which Watertrek has just obtained. The aim of this label is to highlight positive initiatives and tell of the commitment of actors rooted in the territories in response to the major challenges facing rivers.
Many thanks to Sophie Gardette and her team for their interest and support.
10 years of actions, excursions, awareness-raising and mobilization around water protection, Watertrek was delighted to celebrate its 10 years of existence in the company of many of its Parisian supporters, partners and volunteers on December 8th.
Born at the counter of the Paris boat show bar in 2013 following a conversation with Yann N'Guyen, Marketing Director of Naish France, it was at the bottom of Notre-Dame, on the Seine and on the water that we blew out our candles! Many thanks to the barge Le Son de la Terre for its warm welcome.
Watertrek has decided to join forces with its new partner DryRivERS to contribute to the observation of water stress and the drying out of rivers. Piloted by INRAE (France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment) in Villeurbanne, DryRivERS’s application can be used to identify and photograph particularly dry areas, enabling researchers to make more accurate predictions on the effects of global warming on our ecosystems.
A European atlas of hydrographic networks sensitive to drying out will be developed from all the observations provided by DryRivERS and other sources of information, the aim of INRAE being to consolidate all the work and indicators on this subject.
Discover the App here.
On September 30, 2022, our co-founder Séverine was awarded the Franco-Romanian Friendship Prize at the French Senate for her work with Romanian paddlers during a trip to Bucharest. In June 2018, a Watertrek delegation travelled to Romania to meet with local rowers and activists, and discuss how best to work together to protect our natural playgrounds. The whole group was then allowed - for the very first time - to sail through the heart of the Romanian capital.
Creation of a steering committee to tackle upstream waste
Since 2021, Watertrek is part of a dedicated steering committee - COPIL Voies de transfert - established by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition. Members work together to address upstream pollution, with the aim of significantly reducing plastic waste carried to the sea.
As a result, Watertrek operates collectively with other associations, government agencies, and relevant stakeholders, following the French road map “Zero plastic waste in the sea 2025”, and the European Directive “Strategy for the marine environment. (DCSMM).
This synergy serves to better tackle river plastic waste which largely contributes to 80 % of sea pollution.
To ensure efficiency and alignment in the work completed, meetings take place once to twice a year.
Watertrek has joined Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance of more than 1,200 organizations in 75 countries working toward a more equitable world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impact on waterways, oceans, and the environment.
PPC is currently working with Hollywood industries to raise awareness on plastic and waste representation in TV series through its initiative «Flip the script on plastic». The aim is to develop new narratives and gestures on screen, a very inspiring endeavor indeed.