By Renato Galeotti, Small-Scale Fisher, Vada, Italy

My name is Renato Galeotti and I have been a professional fisherman in Vada, Italy, since 2013. I don’t come from a family of fishermen and I don’t have a personal history tied to the sea.

Until 15 years ago, my life was divided between my job as a sales manager for a paper company and time dedicated to social and environmental initiatives – which have always been a major focus of my life. I am part of the generation that, starting in the early 1990s, believed that the world could be changed from the bottom-up through a series of small, everyday gestures.

In the early 2000s, I realised, with regret, that the world wasn’t going the way we’d hoped, and so I felt something had to change, both in my approach to environmentalism and, consequently, in my life. Thus was born the idea of ​​caring for a common good—the sea—and of working with it closely, every day, joining the group of people who, more than any other, are confronted daily with the management of this common good: fishermen.

Moja je supruga podijelila ovo putovanje sa mnom i zajedno smo odlučili preseliti se u Vadu u Italiji, gdje je mogla nastaviti svoj rad kao učiteljica u osnovnoj školi.

Integrating into the world of Vada’s fishermen wasn’t difficult, especially because many of the older fishermen “adopted” me and recognised my attitude toward the sea embed the same respect they had learned from their parents and grandparents, who were fishermen. Indeed: respect for the environment isn’t an invention of third-millennium environmentalists, but was the norm when fishermen inherited the sea from their ancestors and passed it on to their children, confident that they would carry on their work.

Nešto se slomilo u odnosu između ribara i mora, a to se dogodilo kada se riba prestala smatrati izvorom hrane, prvenstveno za obalnu zajednicu, i postala trgovački proizvod kao i mnogi drugi. Ribolovni napor naglo se povećao, a dosadašnja ravnoteža je narušena. Iz tog sam razloga od samog početka odlučio svoj ulov rezervirati za odabranu skupinu “ljubitelja ribe” koji bi sa mnom provodili ribolovni projekt sposoban poštovati ritmove i regenerativnu sposobnost mora. Drugim riječima: nemam kupce nego ljude koji kupnjom ribe dijele zajednički projekt.

My years of social and environmental activism have allowed me to meet countless people driven by my own search for ways to impact reality, including through purchasing behaviour, and these people quickly became the “reference community” for my catch. They are people who gather in groups and live in cities or towns not far from Vada. Three afternoons a week, I bring the morning’s catch, usually on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. There’s no choice: I divide the day’s catch among those who have pre-ordered, naturally taking everyone’s preferences into account. But the choice ends there; you can’t just specify one or two types of fish and receive only those.

This approach worked; so, within a short time, I involved other fishermen from Vada in this project and began delivering their catch as well. Naturally, the project has very specific rules: we fish only with gillnets; we don’t use nets with small meshes, even though the law allows it; and apply a series of other measures to reduce the impact on the sea. It’s worth noting that, in this way, I’ve never thrown away a single fish.

Prodajna cijena moje ribe niža je od one koja se obično nalazi na tržištu svježe ribe i to je mala nagrada koju oni koji sudjeluju u mom projektu dobivaju u zamjenu za odricanje od svog izbora.

Ovakav način “života na moru” svakako je pridonio jačanju veza među nama ribarima. Godine 2021. odlučili smo osnovati udrugu koja okuplja sve ribare Vade i čija je misija, između ostalog, podizanje svijesti o našem moru, ribolovnim tehnikama koje se prenose stoljećima, te poticanje poštovanja prema okolišu. Svake godine deseci, možda i stotine djece osnovne škole dolaze nas posjetiti i upoznati se s našim radom.

Prije oko godinu dana osnovali smo mrežu udruga pod nazivom “Odbor za zaštitu Vada bankova”. Obalni pojas kod Vade ima jedinstvene karakteristike: to je more bogato biološkom raznolikošću o kojem se treba brinuti i koje se mora poštovati. Stvaranje ovog odbora svakako je važan korak, ali ga je sada potrebno provesti u djelo.

Živimo u teškom povijesnom trenutku u kojem se mnogi dionici s različitim interesima protive ekološkim borbama, zbog čega se, više nego ikada prije, moramo okupiti i udružiti svoje snage bez da nas naše razlike dijele.

The role of associations that combine the environment and daily work is very important and, in particular, I believe that the Make Fishing Fair campaign is a point of reference for all of us: finally we know we are not alone.