“The ocean is harsh. And the paintings could also be harsh if the wholesalers devour all of it up.” So mentioned the narrator of Los angeles Terra Trema, in 1948. Luchino Visconti’s movie recounted the injustice skilled by means of the fishermen of a small village close to Catania in Sicily. They had been suffering to feed their households as a result of the cost of freshly stuck fish was once saved low by means of the wholesalers.

Seventy-five years later, the industrial dynamics of these days’s international village have develop into extra advanced nonetheless. Fishing has industrialised, and higher medical working out of its affect within the Mediterranean has set alarm bells ringing. The ocean stays a harsh position for plenty of small-scale fishermen within the 22 international locations bordering the Mediterranean. However they aren’t the one ones struggling. The marine ecosystem is just too, since its fish shares are most commonly overexploited.

In Mazara del Vallo, in August 2022, captain and ship-owner Mimmo Asaro was once venting concerning the state of affairs of Mazara’s prawn fishermen, whose fleet of trawlers has reduced in size dramatically in recent times.”‘If EU regulations do not kill us, we’re nonetheless intent on residing [on fishing]. We need to appreciate the ocean however what bothers us is that non-EU international locations don’t apply the similar regulations. They paintings one year a 12 months. We prevent they usually cross on fishing. There are Italian [fish] buyers from Tunisia who promote at a cheaper price than us,” he explains from the deck of his fishing boat. “It is unfair pageant. Everyone seems to be in opposition to us.”

At a distance of 160 km and a couple of months, at the different aspect of the Sicilian Channel, a special view is obtainable by means of a Tunisian shipowner and fish exporter, Ashraf Hammami. He’s in his place of business, overlooking the port of Kelibia, a coastal hub in northeast Tunisia. “The folks of Mazara are complaining concerning the privilege they have got misplaced. Sicily is not aggressive for frozen-on-board fishing.” On-board freezing is standard for shellfish, reminiscent of prawns. “Prior to, we Tunisians needed to undergo Mazara, the place they then resold it. Now we do not, and that is the reason why they’re complaining. We’re not within the Fifties, when simplest the folk from Mazara had boats. When the solar comes out, it comes out for everybody. If the fish is lacking, it is lacking for everybody.”

Between those two marketers who compete for fish within the deep world waters of the central Mediterranean, there’s settlement on one level: we want a moratorium this is revered by means of all. The other is that many marine species, together with essentially the most successful ones, will cave in. Each males have spent their lives exploiting the ocean: Captain Asaro was once arrested thrice within the Nineteen Nineties, within the Gulf of Gabes, for trawling in Tunisian waters. In 1978, Ashraf’s father dropped at Tunisia the primary freezer trawler, bought in Mazara del Vallo. “We learnt the industry of trawling from the folk of Mazara. We exploited the similar house, in combination,” Ashraf provides.

Having a look at information from contemporary many years (printed by means of the FAO in the course of the Basic Fisheries Fee for the Mediterranean, GFCM), it’s transparent that fishing has declined in Italy, simply because it has greater in Tunisia. Extra most often, between 1970 and 2020, there was once a lower in fishing by means of Eu international locations, at the northern shore of the Mediterranean – and an building up by means of non-EU international locations, at the southern shore. Over the past decade, Europe’s relative withdrawal has additionally mirrored activism at the a part of the Eu Fee. Beneath drive from environmental NGOs and in mild of alarming medical information, the Fee has inspired the decommissioning of fishing vessels, reminiscent of the ones in Mazara, as a way to cut back fishing drive and keep fish shares.

Regardless of this, the catch of marketable species within the Mediterranean continues to be prime. 73 p.c of them are overfished, i.e. taken out of the ocean in unsustainable amounts. This drive is estimated to be two times as prime because the organic limits for keeping up fish shares within the close to time period. Within the Tyrrhenian Sea and central Mediterranean the recorded amount of crimson prawn (Parapenaeus longirostris) is easily under sustainable ranges, whilst drive at the pink prawn is expanding. The species that seems to be maximum threatened, consistent with FAO/GFCM information, is the hake (Merluccius merluccius), which within the Sicilian Channel is at an alarmingly low degree. A lot of these species are stuck basically by means of trawling.

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