The signing of the sharing protocol – set up to include fishermen and farmers in virtuous paths through the support of local authorities – represents an important milestone reached by ENSAMBLE, a European project that aims at promoting and developing the “Blue economy” in the Mediterranean through a close collaboration between public and private maritime actors, coordinated by the “Costa degli Etruschi” FLAG of Tuscany in collaboration with Petra Patrimony Corsica (an innovative cooperative based in the Mediterranean) Legambiente Toscana and WWF North Africa, and thanks to the support of the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources.
This goal was achieved during the meetings held in Tunisia on 4 and 5 February as a result of the work of the commissions of Tabarka and El Haouaria, who have elaborated project ideas for an increasingly concrete and structured diversification of fishing.
The Tabarka commission proposed a study of Italian and French legislation on fishing tourism in order to indicate the path of future regulation in Tunisia. In addition to this, the organization of a one-day laboratory was also proposed, to involve operators and administrators in an exchange of experiences and good practices of fishing tourism and ittitourism. Two are the ideas to focus more on among those proposed by El Houaria’s commission: the first one, which includes local fishermen and farmers in a path of ecotourism, fishing tourism and ittitourism; the second one, which promotes the drafting of a process sharing charter with the authorities responsible for authorizing the exercise of these activities, with the aim of simplifying and clarifying the path and facilitating local entrepreneurship. A clear and punctual road map through which it will be possible to achieve concrete results, already in the medium and short term.