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“Look, look, look, look…”
At seven o’clock in the morning, the fog was so thick that the Italian fisherman Vadis Paesanti grabbed the steering wheel of his small fishing boat and repeated it like a mantra:
“Watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out…”
His eyes darted from the tall wooden poles that suddenly appeared to the right and left, to the radar beside the helm, which signaled the location of a nearby vessel shrouded in fog.
We’re gliding along what feels like an endless expanse of waist-deep water known as Sacca di Goro. Located on the north-eastern coast of Italy south of Venice, this lagoon is where earth and water meet and mix, as the Po River flows into the Adriatic Sea – a stunning, blue-grey center where flamingos cross and, on clearer days, storks and herons float overhead.
There, too, the local people have been able to create a balance between making a living and respecting nature through oyster harvesting.
Paesanti, who is 54 years old, is the vice president of Fedagripesca-Confcooperative in the northern region of Emilia-Romagna, an association of fishermen and shellfish farmers.
At oyster farmer, mollusk breeders, more farmers than fishermen – sowing and reaping in the shallow waters of the bay.
“It’s the phase of the moon and its pull on the tides that determine when we go out,” Paesanti said. “In the winter, the tide in the warmer hours of the day, in the summer in the coolest.”
1,800 fishermen harvest oysters from the lagoon
At bag is a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to Europe’s largest oyster harvest. At Venus is from the Philippinesor Manila clams – in delicious Italian oyster – provides the main ingredient in our favorite Italian pasta seafood dish.
It is quickly prepared in a pan with olive oil, garlic and parsley, and – only in this northern region that produces the world-famous Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and ham for Prosciutto di Parma – a light sprinkle of Parmesan. (In addition to pasta with clams is a cuisine that is not found anywhere else in Italy.)
Intensive mussel breeding and harvesting in the malaria-stricken Po delta began in the 1980s, when local fishermen worked to revive dying mussel populations.
Currently, approximately 1,800 fishermen, organized into cooperatives, harvest approximately 15,000 tons per year. oyster from the lagoon – more than half of the total production of Italian clams. Recently, they even launched a new project to cultivate indigenous oysters only in Italy.
Out in the lagoon, Paesanti dropped anchor, pulled on his heavy rubber overalls and descended into the water. Using a motorized hydro scraper, he and his fellow harvesters began dragging the sand for clams below the surface of the sand. A crane takes them on board, where they sort the clams by size, tossing the smaller ones back into the water.
Each cooperative takes the order from the buyer the night before, divides the order among the members of the cooperative and gives each boat a place to harvest. Today, the total harvest is 20 kilograms.
“This way, we sell according to demand and are guaranteed a price,” said Paesanti. “With fishing instead, it’s all about how much you can catch.”
Allevatori di molluschi, or mollusc breeders, on Italy’s Po River are more farmers than fishermen.
Carbon sink harvesting molluscs: research
The Mediterranean, which includes the Adriatic Sea, is one of the most fish-rich areas in the world. A new report by the Common Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, found that nearly three-quarters of commercial species are being caught at rates twice what is considered sustainable.
Thanks to the common fisheries policy of the European Union, overfishing in the Mediterranean has decreased in the last decade, but not enough.
At the same time, science shows that harvesting molluscs is not only a more sustainable option but also a carbon sink.
A study in July 2022 by researchers at the University of Ferrara and the University of Manchester in England analyzed the total CO2 emissions – from what molluscs release when they breathe the gas used in boats to harvest shellfish – and compared it with the CO2 absorbed by shellfish, also known as bivalves.
“We found that hard-shelled mollusks are different from any other kind of animal in that, as they grow and develop and enlarge their shell, they capture C02 from the sea and the atmosphere,” said Elena Tamburini, one of the authors of the study. “So they represent a natural way to capture carbon dioxide permanently, responsible for climate change.”
During the growth phase, one kilogram of oysters can bind 254 grams of CO2, while oyster production only requires 22 grams per kilogram.
Findings and others like the update a few decades ago found that oysters produce more CO2 than they absorb. Those older studies, Tamburini said, ignored the fact that plankton absorbed all the CO2 produced by shellfish in the water before it was released into the atmosphere.
“Compared to other forms of animal protein production, such as fish farming, the environmental impact of shellfish harvesting is lower,” he said.
Another benefit: Mussels, mussels and clams feed themselves by filtering the water, so they don’t need the polluting chemical fertilizers or growth enhancers that fish farms do.
“So when we eat oysters, we are eating something sustainable,” Tamburini said.
‘Commander of crew and boat’
Sasa Raicevich, a sustainable fisheries researcher at the Italian Institute of Environmental Protection, agreed that science and policy tend to identify molluscs as carbon sinks. However, he said, more research needs to be done that takes into account the complete life cycle of the shell. If, for example, discarded shells were burned instead of recycled to make concrete or pavement, the CO2 equation could be reversed, he said.
“I’m not sure the policy has been implemented yet,” said Raicevich, referring to the push to include the sector in the EU’s Emissions Trading System for Blue Carbon credits – a global initiative that aims to mitigate climate change through conservation and restoration. coastal and marine ecosystems.
While harvesting molluscs provides an alternative to exploitative fishing, it also comes with risks – from climate change to agriculture and invasive species.
At the evening fish market inside a large, clean warehouse in Goro, in the Emilia-Romagna region, fishermen unload their catch of soles, sea bass and shrimp – neatly packed and stacked in white Styrofoam boxes.
Organized as a cooperative, approximately 1,800 fishermen harvest approximately 15,000 tons of Manila clams annually from the Sacca di Goro lagoon in northern Italy.
But some types of marine life have disappeared from the area – eaten by blue crabs. Crustaceans arrived from the coast of North America seven or eight years ago, there are no predators here and they reproduce quickly, fishermen say. It is eaten from everything from shrimp and seasoned sand to smaller types of crab.
The fishermen fear that it could damage the mollusk cultivation.
“Mussels, mussels, clams, small crabs, they eat everything,” said fisherman Daniele Paesanti. “We did a test with biologists and put them in a tank of sea water. If you stick your finger in the tank, they will snap it off.
Fertilizer run-off – from fields protected by dams and flat fields on vast plains – overloads the bay’s water with nutrients and minerals, causing algal blooms that turn the surface of the water into a green carpet, threatening marine life.
Rising water temperatures due to climate change are another threat.
While flooding has long been a concern of the Po, climate change has become an issue. Last summer, Italy’s worst drought in 70 years left the country’s longest river dry – exposing German tanks from World War II and medieval city walls.
This season, the river is 3.3 meters below the normal dry point, a level rarely reached even in the height of summer.
The average water temperature in the lagoon over the past decade or so has also risen – up to 11 C compared to the previous average of 3 C. “When I was a child, it was freezing,” Vadis Paesanti said.
On our way back to the harbor, we passed boat after boat, silhouetted like the ghosts of harvesters pulling oysters out of the water.
“We are in the hands of nature, creation,” said Vadis Paesanti. “The work is hard and some years nature takes from you. But to feel the fog, to hear the birdsong, to follow the waves drawn by the moon… to be the commander of yourself and your boat, it is worth it.”
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