On 19 October 2022 at 10:00 am, FISH MED NET participated in the "Nuova Fiera del Levante" event held in Bari, Italy, to present the efforts and objectives of its project and to engage in a fruitful discussion about small-scale fishing and how it can benefit from alliances.
Following this event, an article was published by "L'Attacco" on 19 October summarising the importance of pescatourism in the Puglia region, Italy and the need to create more projects to increase the value of the seafood and tourism sectors.

On this occasion, a round table entitled "Alliances and networks for the future of multifunctionality in the fishing industry" was organised.
Key institutional spokespersons, as well as fishermen, joined the FISH MED NET round table to explain the benefits of diversifying the income of artisanal fishermen. In recent years, the fishing sector has faced many challenges that have hampered its activities. Nevertheless, fishermen have shown resilience and many have engaged in ancillary activities to maintain their livelihoods during these hard times. Cooperation with fishermen was the key message of these discussions in order to improve the quality of life of local communities.

The discussion tackled the challenges faced by the fishermen. During the two years of Covid-related containment and the various restrictions imposed by the European Union on fishing, they struggled to maintain their activity. The situation was quite dramatic, however, those who decided to gather with other actors of the sector and to diversify through pescatourism to increase their income are an example of success stories 

The outcome of this round table was to encourage cooperation and it was closed by the fishermen signing the FISH MED NET business alliance agreement.

You can access the article (in Italian) here