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Giudetti also says that fisheries often use passive gear and organise the profession into small

family sized businesses (in Piante 2012, n.p.). These sentiments mirror those expressed in my

interviews with a variety of stakeholders, which I draw in chapter four.

Within a context in which environmental problems are increasingly defined by

modernity, industrialisation and the limitations of Western knowledge, traditional and local

knowledge gain a utilitarian value. For example, speaking about local knowledge in fishing

communities, Ruddle suggests that ‘they [local knowledge systems] should be conserved

because their utility may only be revealed at some later date or owing to their intrinsic value

as part of the world’s global heritage’ (2000, p. 277). Begossi and Silvano (2005) suggest that

local ecological knowledge is positioned well to complement fishery management. They

demonstrate this through a cross-cultural survey that compares Australian aboriginal and

Brazilian fisher knowledge – migratory movements, feeding habits, reproduction – of

Pomatomus saltatrix (bluefish). They illustrate the accuracy of local knowledge in relation to

scientific knowledge, concluding that fisher knowledge in both Australia and Brazil agrees

with data of species population elsewhere. They suggest that drawing on such local

knowledge and fisher knowledge could improve current knowledge, and local fisheries

management and community consultation. Such sentiments are echoed in Freeman et al. who

argue that the ecological knowledge of fishers is critical to fishery scientists and managers

(2000), and in Johnson et al. (2007, p. 2) identify an epistemological gap between the

ecological knowledge of fishers and scientists – an idea that I take up in chapter five in

relation to my case studies in San Pietro and Favignana. Johannes et al. (2000) add to the

discussion by presenting five case studies from the Solomon Islands skipjack tuna fisheries,

Inuit whale hunters in Canada, Alaskan Bowhead whaling, and two cases of the beluga

whale. Each case illustrates how indigenous or traditional knowledge can prove scientific

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