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Fig. 6.3 Comparison between employment on large-scale and small-scale fleets. Source FAO (2008).

While the proposal calls upon the long cultural history of the traps and thus gives

weight to the term traditional and artisanal, it does so strategically and in combination with an

appeal to science. This is how it differentiates the traps from the purse seines. It comes as no

surprise that Piero Addis and his team, who were also instrumental in arguing for the trap’s

data potential, undertook one of the few social studies. The EU proposal draws on a cultural

history and socio-economic analysis (highlighting local eating habits and trap/mattanza tours)

of the tonnara and relates it to the trap’s capacity to continue the historical collection of data.

It makes a powerful argument that sits neatly within a marine science discourse. In other

words, the cultural history in combination with the historical data has enabled the traps to be

a data gold mine and therefore a tool for future tuna management. Actually, as the study

argues, the traps have become the most reliable ICCAT scientific observatory for the Atlantic

and eastern bluefin stocks (Ambrosio & Xandri 2015, p. 45). Trap data:

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