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In­ter­na­tional: Slow Fish - Un­der­stand­ing the Oceans

What is at is­sue:

Fish­ing has been a stra­tegic is­sue for the Slow Food for many years. With fish­ing, as with ag­ri­cul­ture, Slow Food strongly be­lieves that every in­di­vidual can con­trib­ute to chan­ging the cur­rent glob­al­ized food sys­tem based on the in­tens­ive ex­ploit­a­tion of re­sources.

The de­vel­op­ment model we want to pro­mote is in­stead based on the in­volve­ment of all the local act­ors, sup­port­ing the link between land and sea and a har­mo­ni­ous and re­spons­ible use of all avail­able re­sources, par­tic­u­larly mar­ine re­sources, so as to en­sure the ap­plic­a­tion of sus­tain­able prac­tices through the pro­mo­tion of tra­di­tional tech­niques that re­spect the equi­lib­ri­ums of eco­sys­tems.

The cur­rent situ­ation with the pan­demic re­in­forces Slow Food’s con­vic­tion: we need to re­think our en­tire so­ci­ety to face the new chal­lenges of our time. The change de­parts by bring­ing con­sumers closer to the ori­gin of their food, build­ing solid re­la­tion­ships. Des­pite the con­stric­tions im­posed by COVID-19, the Slow Fish net­work has been very act­ive in the dis­cus­sion on how to im­prove the food sys­tem and spe­cially the man­age­ment of re­sources con­nec­ted to fish­ing.

The cur­rent situ­ation with COVID-19 makes clear what Slow Food has been say­ing since its found­ing 30 years ago: our food sov­er­eignty will only be guar­an­teed if we have strong local pro­duc­tion sup­por­ted by self-de­term­ined local act­ors.

What's hap­pen­ing now:

The 8th In­ter­na­tional Slow Food Con­gress will take place in the fall of 2022 as part of Terra Madre. It will be a cru­cial mo­ment to set our polit­ical, stra­tegic and or­gan­iz­a­tional dir­ec­tion.

In the run-up to the Con­gress, a key doc­u­ment has been pro­duced to sup­port our move­ment in the work ahead. The doc­u­ment, "An Ur­gent Call to Slow Down," pro­poses three pri­or­it­ies around which our com­mit­ments, ac­tions, and pro­jects should be ar­tic­u­lated: de­fend­ing biod­iversity, rais­ing aware­ness, and sup­port­ing our ef­forts and in­flu­en­cing the pub­lic and private sec­tors.

Com­munit­ies: The net­work is work­ing to ex­pand the Slow Food com­munit­ies model to coastal, lake and river hab­it­ats.

Es­tab­lish­ment of an in­ter­na­tional ad­vis­ory board: the grow­ing com­plex­ity, con­tra­dic­tions and un­cer­tain­ties, as well as the geo­graphic ex­pan­sion that Slow Fish has ex­per­i­enced in re­cent years, make it ne­ces­sary to cre­ate an in­ter­na­tional ad­vis­ory board that rep­res­ents the di­versity of dif­fer­ent per­spect­ives.

Grass­roots pro­jects: the launch of the new logo in­cludes the re­vi­sion of the pro­to­cols of the Presidia (18 in Italy, 1 in the Neth­er­lands, 1 in Den­mark, 1 in France), new nar­rat­ive la­beling, the search for new "arks of taste" in sea­food products.

Events: The 2021 Slow Fish Gen­ova edi­tion "The Wa­ter Cycles" (Genoa, June 4/​July 2021) has a di­gital and a phys­ical com­pon­ent due to COVID con­straints. The pro­gram will in­clude we­binars and short videos ad­dress­ing the chal­lenges fa­cing our fish­ing com­munit­ies, il­lus­trat­ing the cul­tural her­it­age of fish­ing, sea­food re­cipes, and testi­mo­ni­als from the global net­work. A gast­ro­nomic pro­gram will of­fer taste ex­per­i­ences.

Re­gional Slow Fish Net­works:

  • Africa: the Slow Fish network especially in the Maghreb and the Great Lakes region will receive special support as they are very active and well organized.
  • North and South America: the organization of activities (webinars, publications) within the Slow Fish North America and Slow Fish Caribe networks will be supported.
  • Northern Oceans: we would like to revitalize this region and continue the work around ethical trade and co-management.
  • Slow Fish Med: We will support the organization of Slow Fish Med in Morocco (fall 2021) to strengthen the new alliances between the North and South of the Mediterranean.
  • Slow Food is a member of the steering committee for the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture. Slow Food will promote the IYAFA global action plan.

The fair "Slow Fish" takes place every two years in Genoa. It in­forms con­sumers and deals with sus­tain­able fish­er­ies.

We are eat­ing more fish than ever be­fore. Our con­sump­tion of fish is fast spiralling bey­ond con­trol, push­ing fish­er­ies and mar­ine eco­sys­tems to the brink.

What we have achieved:

Slow Fish’s main task was to con­sol­id­ate and work with the net­works on spe­cific ex­changes and pro­jects re­lated to poverty al­le­vi­ation, eco­lo­gical re­spons­ib­il­ity, pro­mo­tion of local pro­duc­tion and ca­pa­city build­ing for com­munity or­gan­iz­a­tion.
Our activ­it­ies de­veloped along 5 them­atic axes:

  • Knowledge sharing as a tool for increasing resilience of rural and coastal communities in southern countries, with a focus on knowledge that can help improve local capacity to organize, increase responsibility towards natural resources, add value to products, and livelihood alternatives development
  • Creative use of invasive species, or how to transform a threat into an opportunity
  • Interconnected waterways, since fisheries are located all along waterways, and the impact of inland fisheries on the ocean.
  • Aquaculture and Aquaponics as a viable and responsible alternative
  • Increasing synergies between indigenous peoples and fishery issues and network.

The in­ter­na­tional Slow Fish cam­paign is launch­ing ini­ti­at­ives that pro­mote ar­tis­anal fish­ing and neg­lected fish spe­cies and in­spire re­flec­tion on the state and man­age­ment of the sea’s re­sources.

The Slow Fish event, held every two years in Genoa, is the most com­plete ex­pres­sion of our ap­proach, with a large space ded­ic­ated to in­form­a­tion for con­sumers, aware­ness-rais­ing for chil­dren and en­coun­ters between people in­volved in sus­tain­able fish­ing. And of course, there are plenty of op­por­tun­it­ies for tast­ing all the de­li­cious sea­food that vis­it­ors have been learn­ing about.

The mul­ti­lin­gual web­site, to paint a com­plete and nu­anced pic­ture of the com­plex situ­ation that lies be­hind a plate of fish. Slow Food provides a teach­ing tool that il­lus­trates the ba­sic con­cepts of fish sus­tain­ab­il­ity, such as sea­son­al­ity, sizes and re­pro­duct­ive age, to help every class re­search their own local fish spe­cies.

TheSlow Food Foundation for Biodiversity is play­ing a key role. In re­cent years it has launched 23 Presidia pro­jects with Terra Madre fish­ing com­munit­ies. The Slow Fish in Ac­tion sec­tion gives vis­ib­il­ity to these pro­jects, along with all the activ­it­ies un­der­taken every day by the mem­bers of our net­work to pro­mote good, clean and fair fish.

Project archive Slow Fish

Re­port 2021

Re­port 2020

Re­port 2019

Slow Fish Webseite

Slow Fish Web­site

This web­site of­fers path­ways for any­one who wants to learn how to use com­mon sense, curi­os­ity and ap­pet­ite to make choices that are con­scious, deli...

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