[CINC] MPAs in Sicily: Sadness and Hope.

[Paul Jr. Petrich]

CINC Volunteers,

 Greetings. I am now on my own odessey homeward, after completing a season of coaching football in Catania, at the base of Mt Etna in eastern Sicily. My first stop was in the  Egadi islands off the  NW coast of Sicily. The three islands of Levanzo, Favignana, and Marettimo, plus the islets of Maraone and Formica, form a marine reserve that is the largest in Italy ( 54,000 hectares AND 74,000 meters of coastline ). It is also known as the Aegadian Islands Marine Protected Area, and was Italy's first effort at creating an underwater conservation area: established by a law in 1982. However, many government changes in the original decree deluted its original environmental scope, due primarily to intense opposition from local fishing industry groups. They  had been left out  of the original  zonation planning.  As the final product reached completion in the mid 1990s, the most environmentally protected Zone A was deminished to only two areas: On Maretimmo, the farthest island from Sicily; and surrounding the uninhabited islet of Maraone. Total area designated to Zone A is now 1,067 hectares, and has just under 9,000 meters of coastline. Zone B , which restricts consumptive activity to varying degrees, totals 2,865 hectares and 18,637 meters of coastline. Zone C, which allows extensive degrees of consumptive activity, totals just under 22,000 hectares and 46,422 meters of coastline. It is also the only marine reserve in Italy that has a special Zone D, which allows trawling between Maretimmo and the other  two islands. Most complaints fostering changes in the original plan came from the locals on the most populated island, Favignana, where the fishing industry has roots going back to the Pheonecians.

 In my four boat trips to to the islands on different days, I did not  see a single tuna splash, for which this area is famous, nor did I see a single marine  mammal of any kind. Only in a prehistoric cave on Levanzo, did I see paintings of these magnificent marine creatures: tuna and dolphin depicted as witnessed by humans 13,000 to 7,000 years ago! And, as I mentioned in my previous email, this  is a seaworld that many of the ancient Greeks never ventured into without seeking guidance from Oracles who themselves sought wisdom and guidance from dolphin ( Delphi ). Not one did I see , and I circumnavicated each island. These islands look so much like  the Channel Islands you visit constantly.

 On my way out to Favignana on one of these trips, I met a young lady who was a marine biologist working out of the University of Palermo. She expressed a strong opinion supporting the fact that many MPAs here are administered poorly, and with little enforcement. However, she was born and raised on Favignana, and goes back home constantly with a different message than the island has heard ever since ancient times.

 THAT DIFFERENT MESSAGE HAS REACHED THE MOST DISTANT  ISLAND, MARETIMMO! This island has produced tuna and sardine fishermen in the 19th and 20th centuries who have emigrated as far as the distant shores of San Pedro and Monterey,California. Their fishing expertise is legendary. However, now this island and its little town has reinvented itself to survive economically through a healthy ecotourism based upon the extensive marine reserve which surrounds the entire island, which is about the size of San Miguel.

The Zones A and B are most prominent , covering 2/3rds of the coastline, and  since 1997, the  terrestial landscape is also a natural preserve. The lack of trash, especially plastics, is  estounding. It IS  a problem most everywhere else in Sicily. Visitors come to dive, sun, swim and hike, and most rent very clean rooms from the local population, rent boat trips from fishermen, or rent their mules to explore where they do not want to walk.

 A visit to the local small fishermen's  museum provided many surprises. The population on this island of only a few  hundred, produced many emigrant fishermen who fished the waters of what is now our National Marine Sanctuarys of the Channel Islands and Monterey. In fact, this September, our sister sanctuary in Monterey will screen in the USA a documentary about this very theme. This documentary was produced by the director of one of the MPAs in Sicily. NEXT STOP: ISTICA MARINE RESRVE 70 K NORTH OF PALERMO.

 Ciao, Paul Petrich

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