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system is a fixed system (i.e. a passive system) and does not rely on bait or devices to attract

tuna. Secondly, only tuna stay in the net. If smaller species enter the net they can escape

through the net as the net size is designed to capture the large tuna. Divers and tonnarotti

monitor the nets daily and free any larger non-target species caught in the net, such as

swordfish and stingray. Giuliano also makes the point that purse seines have affected the

average size of the tuna and now it is rare to get the large 180kg tuna. The final sustainability

criteria Giuliano explains is the season. On this matter he sums up with a rhetorical question

that points to the catch limitations of a passive system, ‘for a season that lasts a month and a

half how many tuna can we catch?’ (G Greco 2013, pers. comm. 1 June).

Giolardo Rivana (2013, pers. comm. 18 June) makes similar comparisons between the

tonnara and large-scale fisheries. He explains that the average seasonal catch for the tonnara

is 3000 fish (211 tonnes in 2013), ‘which is nothing compared to what is happening in the

rest of the world’ (G Rivana 2013, pers. comm. 18 June). He continues:

Someone told me that in other places in one day they did 240 tonnes, in one day!
So it’s not us, the tonnara, that oppose the tuna, here we take 3,000 from the
tonnara and beyond 50,000 pass us. Then 50,000 will be taken in the Atlantic, will
be taken by the Japanese…That is the problem. (G Rivana 2013, pers. comm. 18
June)

In addition to the focus on scale, my interview with Michaele Tammaro (the

owner/manager of the family preserved tuna company and shop in Favignana that I referred

to in chapter one) demonstrates an ideology of nature and of human/nature interactions.

I think that this word sustainability is used, in inverted commas, ‘ignorantly’,
because sustainability for me means...I’ll give you an example, for us in this area
the tuna was/is like the bison for the American Indians. The tuna arrives and the
people have food to eat, there is work, everything is done with criteria, with brain,
it’s good for the tuna and for the sea and good for mankind. It’s not good what
was being done before by the Japanese, the indiscriminate fishing. Limit them.
You shouldn’t limit the fishers here that fish with such ancient practices, with the
tonnara that has been going for 2000 years...So to have a true sustainable fishing
practice, like fishing, like culture, like the environment, the sustainability must be,
it’s a delicate thing, it must be very targeted. So get the Japanese who fish

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