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Alternative employment

There are two main alternative employment opportunities for fishermen: scientific

observation and pescaturismo. For example, the MPA tries to engage fishermen in

management activities with a project of monitoring species. Stefano explains:

…they are put in charge of [monitoring] the marine protected area, they have
reserved a certain number of expeditions per year just for observations of the
protected species, they tag turtles, dolphins, monk seal etc etc. … we’ve had a
great result from all this observation activity. So we’ve had special
funding…we’ve managed it with the fishermen, giving work to forty local
fishermen boats for two years. (S Donato 2013, pers. comm. 3 July)

Pescaturismo is also considered as an employment opportunity. Fishermen like Alberto can

take tourists out to sea to participate in fishing activities, enjoy local sites and sample the

catch. While both these scenarios offer a solution to the problems of illegal fishing and catch

decline fishing in Favignana, they are not free of problems. As I will explore further in

chapter six not all fishermen want to change their livelihood, and it takes a certain amount of

economic and social capital to establish a pescaturismo business.

Conclusion

st
In the first two decades of the 21 century, tuna, sustainability and the tonnara can be

understood as dingpolitik. They have become matters of concern and care, drawing diverse

groups together sometimes in contradictory and contentious ways. The purpose of this

chapter has been to illustrate specific local manifestations of a sustainability assemblage and

to introduce the case studies of San Pietro and Favignana as two tuna fishing communities

undergoing significant transformations. Both communities were based on thriving tuna

fisheries. Both have experienced change and loss. These transformations, along with the

diverse groups and things that gather around tuna, the issue of sustainability and the tonnara,

can be understood as components of a wide reaching but locally situated sustainability

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