A handful of fishers is working to make the fishery on Lastovo more sustainable

New activities promise to boost the island’s economy

The island of Lastovo is four hours away from Split by ferry and the entire island has been declared a nature park. Here, Antonio Divoje, a fisherman concerned with sustainability, has initiated a fishing and agriculture cooperative that will add value to its products in part by creating a story about the island and the nature park.

Getting fishermen to work together is an uphill task at the best of times, and when they come from an island, converting them to the idea is even tougher. But that is precisely what Antonio Divoje, a fisher from the island, is trying to do. He is trying to persuade like-minded fishers on the island to create a cooperative. But, as he puts it, this is a small, isolated island and the mentality of the people is a little special. Getting his fellow fishers to share the idea of a cooperative that obliges them to fish sustainably and where co-management is one of the basic principles is therefore not easy. When presented with the idea and the reasons behind it, all the fishermen agree, but from there to actually sign up is a big and near insurmountable step for most of them. Above all, they want to see the results before they decide whether to join or not and, in addition, there are different interests at stake, so some may never be convinced.

Young people leave the island and seldom come back

The island has a fixed population of 600-700 people. In the summer though this number increases 2-3 times because people from the mainland own summer cottages here and occupy them in the

Antonio Divoje’s concerns about the sustainability of shing on Lastovo prompted him to establish a cooperative that would open up opportunities to make more with less sh.

season. Among the permanent residents the number of young people is disproportionately low because they have to travel to other cities to complete high school and university and they rarely return. Mr Divoje himself was an exception. He finished his high school in Split studying pharmacy and then went on to university where he studied dentistry. He spent two years of the programme in Split and a third year in Sarajevo and then, unable to see himself working in this field, he quit. He returned to Split, where he worked in a pharmacy for a year and then moved to a hospital pharmacy in Rijeka for a further three years. In the end he decided he wanted to work for himself and returned to Lastovo. The island dwellers are familiar with fishing and with boats either because they are anglers themselves or because somebody in the family is an angler or a professional fisherman. Back on the island Mr Divoje therefore decided to become a fisherman. He started a small business, bought the license of a retired fisher, got a small boat and the gear and started fishing in 2018.

After a couple of years his younger brother decided to join him and so they invested in a 10 m vessel. The bigger boat is safer, has a covered deck and as a result can also be used in winter when it can get quite cold out on the water. As

A shop is being renovated to sell sh and ultimately other products to local consumers and to tourists.

he fished, Antonio Divoje began increasingly to feel that he needed to switch to more sustainable fishing practices. When he started, he fished only with gillnets, but over time he has switched more or less completely to longlines. The seabed around Lastovo is varied with areas of sand, rocks, or corals. This diversity is attractive for different fish species and is part of the reason why the island was declared a natural park. However, if a fisher is targeting a single species there are not many places to fix the nets. Fishing with longlines has less of an impact on the environment and he sees gillnets as not being as sustainable. Every year in the summer season the demand for fish increases, he says, and we will not be able to sustain our stocks.

Strong support from NGOs is critical

Fishing on Lastovo is regulated by national laws which specify the gear that can be used. For example, some types of gillnets can be used throughout the year but not other kinds. Fishing is also regulated temporally—certain species may be caught at some times of the year but not at others. Then there are limits on the gear, gillnets may not be more than a prescribed number of meters, longlines are restricted by the number of hooks, and pots by the number of pots. In the nature park there used to be restrictions on fishers from other islands, but that was changed a few years ago and it was during this process that Mr Divoje was selected to represent the commercial fishers of Lastovo. This gave him a solid insight into administrative matters, legal issues, and how things functioned in government. With the help of WWF-Adria and the administration of the nature park a document was drawn up reducing the number of gears that could be used in the area of the park. This showed him how fishers could contribute to reducing fishing pressure. He hoped that this would inspire sports and recreational fishers to also reduce their activities to the same extent, but this did not happen. This is currently the biggest problem that the commercial fishers are facing as they have given up some of their opportunities to catch fish, but the other fishers have not, and apart from being inequitable this has economic consequences for the commercial fishers. He is waiting for the ministry of environment to reduce the pressure imposed by the sports and recreational fishers on the stock.

For the last two or three years Mr Divoje, again with the help of WWF-Adria, has been trying to form a cooperative of fishers. This will enable fishers to contribute to decision-making more effectively, give them a voice, show them that it pays to work collectively, and also reduce expenses. There are about 40 professional fishing licences on Lastovo, of which the active fishers number some 25, and of these about 10 are fishing for their livelihoods. This means that the fishers have different incentives and interests and makes it difficult to convince them to change their ways. The fishers themselves have to see that the way they are working cannot go on, says Mr Divoje. Fishers who have diversified their sources of income—doing a little fishing, running a small restaurant, renting a cottage to tourists—will not take kindly to being asked to fish differently. They have to realise for themselves that changes made now will ensure that they can fish in the future. Antonio Divoje has spoken with all the potential members of the cooperative but realises that he has to show them some material benefits of joining.

Cooperative has already initiated several projects

In March this year at a meeting Mr Divoje finally got the seven people which is the minimum needed to establish a cooperative. However, two of them are from the agriculture sector and not fishermen at all. This however offers more opportunities to the cooperative. By combining agriculture and fishing the cooperative could invest in value added products that exploit the fact that they come from an island and a nature park creating an attractive story. The cooperative is already looking at opening a shop where it can sell fish as there is currently no such place on the island. The shop would create a position for one person and is a big step for a body that did not even exist a few months ago. The learning curve is steep as the members have to familiarise themselves with operating a shop, with rules and regulation, financial matters, and marketing but they get a lot of support from WWF-Adria and from other NGOs. Exporting the fish is another exciting possibility as it will mean better prices and so the fishers will be able to reduce the amount they must catch. The other advantage is that it would be a year-round activity and not dependent on the tourist season.

A year ago, Antonio Divoje was on the verge of quitting to concentrate instead on his own business, now the headway he has made has changed his whole perspective and revived his determination to future proof the fishery on Lastovo.

Antonio Divoje Director, Fishing Cooperative Nocna Morina Tel.: +385 98 575 866