Who is Carlotta?
I remember I was 6 years old begging my dad every weekend to take me to the seaside to observe sharks and turtles swimming in the sea. I pursued this passion my whole life until I became both a marine biologist and scuba diving teacher.
One year ago, I started an exciting project named “Blue eat” with four of my best friends to promote sustainable fishing. We call ourselves “mariscadoras” which is a term that refers to those Galician women that fought for their rights as workers in the fishing industry.
How did your relationship with the ocean start?
My true passion for marine life begun with a friendship. One of my favorite things to do while spending my summers in Croatia was to feed crabs, until one day I started interacting with an octopus. After a month of daily interactions, we started playing together and every time I would get close to the sea it was there waiting for me. The day a local fisherman killed it in front of me, I understood that I wanted to dedicate my life to preserving octopuses in the ocean.
What is the story behind “Blue Eat”?
I am a volunteer for the Cetacea Onlus Foundation and for three months I was involved in an exciting project called “sailing for blue life”. I was sailing around Italy, with the goal of involving citizens in activities related to the preservation of marine life.
During this experience I gathered many information related to climate change. This led me to find out about the problem of invasive marine species and how they are affecting the ecosystem. Becoming aware of the damages they are causing made me understand that I had to actively contribute to this issue. Making alien species appealing and tasty to people is a way to reduce their presence in our seas. Our motto is: Alien is Good, Alien is Food!
Who are the “Mariscadoras”?
We are five friends from Rimini that aim at promoting sustainable fishing through alien species. We cooperate with small scale fishermen and try to supply them with specific fish traps in order to protect local marine spices. We fight both for a better planet, but also for gender equality in the fishing industry, which historically has been male dominated.
Which are the most invasive species in the Mediterranean/Adriatic sea?
The blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) and bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) arrived from the Atlantic Sea and were carried by ships’ currents. They are defined as invasive species because they do not have predators and damage the entire marine ecosystem by depleting the supply of clams.
Meanwhile, the Anadara specie is a saltwater bivalve from the Indian ocean that gets stuck into trawl nets. All these species are usually caught by accident and then thrown again in water.
What are the main difficulties that Blueat is currently facing?
One of the hardest tasks is closing deals with fishermen. First of all, we are trying to make them understand that we are not their competitors, nevertheless we aim at helping them by creating a market demand for fish species that are currently putting in danger their business. Secondly, being women makes it more difficult to be taken seriously in this industry.
We are seeking financial support from European tenders in order to provide fishermen the right equipment and fishing nets. Our goal is to sign 1-2 years contracts with them in order to protect their business.
Which products are you planning to sell?
We recently started a partnership with Tagliapietra, a company from Northern Italy that is in charge of the processing of our products. Thanks to this collaboration we just launched a ready to eat blue crab sauce in two different versions (with and without tomato sauce) in supermarkets.
Which strategies are you exploring to increase awareness?
Show cooking events and social media are two fundamental tools, to spread our initiative and to explain to people how to recreate tasty recipes with invasive alien species. For example, one of our favorite recipes is blue crab gyoza.
Collaborations with chefs are also pivotal, as the one with the Michelin star chef Chiara Pavan from Venissa, located in the Venetian Lagoon. She is specialized in cooking with various alien species from Veneto and supports our initiative. In fact, few months ago she introduced in her menu blue crab tacos!
Which other projects are you currently working on?
An interesting collaboration we are working on is with “Enaleia”, a Greek startup that is working on collecting “ghost nets” and give them a second life by transforming them into socks. We are organizing scuba diving excursions to collect the abandoned nets in Italian waters.