Manuela Callari: I think what the rest of the world probably doesn’t really… is not aware of is how this very small area of the world has a big impact, not only on that area, but on the rest of the world. We’ve talked about carbon capture. We’ve talked about an incredible amount of biodiversity. If that’s lost, it’s lost for everybody, not just for the people living around the Mediterranean Sea. And I think that’s still not understood very well.

Mike DiGirolamo: Welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. I’m your host, Mike DiGirolamo, bringing you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists, and activists working on the front lines of conservation, shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet and holding people in power to account. This podcast is edited on Gadigal land. Today on the Newscast, we speak with journalist Manuela Callari. She has written several pieces for Mongabay focusing on marine ecological health in the region where she resides, the Mediterranean. Today, we speak about the unique function of the Mediterranean Sea and perhaps why it seems to be taken for granted. This body of water contains less than one percent of the world’s surface ocean water, but roughly eighteen percent of its marine biodiversity, making it a concentrated but vulnerable system. Additionally, it is an essential carbon sink, capturing an estimated seventeen point eight million tons of CO2 each year. Callari takes us to the shores of Italy, where the government has recently mapped Posidonia seagrass meadows along its waters and entire coastline, which is an unprecedented effort in scale. Callari highlights the connection between socioeconomic pressures and their effects on marine biodiversity in Italian waters. A popular tourist dish called spaghetti ricci di mare is one of the reasons that poachers raid marine protected areas for sea urchins, the dish’s primary ingredient. Urchins, however, are critical for the overall health of marine habitats and for preventing algal growth. And while the Italian government makes an effort to catch these poachers, Callari says few of them face any strict consequences. However, the laws can be changed to prevent overfishing, and Callari says that she wishes the world would better understand the Mediterranean’s unique ecosystem and suggests more education for tourists visiting the region to help them understand the pressures it faces. Hi, Manuela. Thank you for joining us today.

Manuela: Thank you for having me.

Mike: So we’re going to talk about two stories that you’ve written for Mongabay, but the first thing that I want to ask you is about the Mediterranean marine ecosystem as a whole. What is so unique about Mediterranean ocean biodiversity? Is there something about it that you feel as a journalist is often overlooked by the global community?

Manuela: Yeah, the Mediterranean Sea is unique because it’s a semi-enclosed sea, so it is connected to the oceans, but in a very subtle way, let’s say. So I think I’ve read somewhere that it takes about a century for a drop to get through the strait and get into the ocean. So there’s a very slow flow between the Mediterranean Sea and the oceans outside. And while the Mediterranean Sea represents 1% of the global waters that we have, it hosts something like 18% of species that we know. The health of this basin is really important for the rest of the world also because the Mediterranean Sea is a very important carbon sink. And if we lose that, it’s a problem for everybody on the planet, and there’s a risk that it might turn from being a carbon sink to releasing carbon into the atmosphere if the ecosystem collapses.

Mike: So we’re going to get into more about the problems, especially when we talk about the story about sea urchins. But other than those, what are some of the major problems that are experienced by coastal and marine ecosystems near Italy or in the Mediterranean that you’ve witnessed?

Manuela: Yeah. So there are many threats to marine species and the ecosystems in general, the marine environment in general in the Mediterranean. First of all, it’s been overexploited. The Mediterranean coast hosts something like 150 million people, so it’s a very densely populated area. And all these people have lived, have relied on what that water has to offer to survive, and that’s fishing, but that’s also tourism, especially lately. So overfishing is definitely one of the main problems in the Mediterranean. There are areas that have been completely depopulated. So overfishing is definitely one of the main problems in the Mediterranean. There’s also a problem of illegal fishing and legal fishing techniques like trawling, for example, that it’s a quite efficient method for the fishers, but it destroys the seabed. And the other problem is pollution and plastic pollution, especially because it’s an enclosed sea. Some estimates say that the Mediterranean collects something like two hundred, or about two hundred, tons of plastic every year.

Mike: Manuela meant to say here that the Mediterranean absorbs at least two hundred and twenty-nine thousand tons of plastic each year, and perhaps up to five hundred and seventy thousand tons.

Manuela: And this plastic stays there. There’s nowhere to go. It becomes microplastic, and it’s eaten by the fish, and it enters the food chain and obviously causes damage to the ecosystem, to the plants, the Posidonia, and the fish that live in this environment. Overtourism is also another problem. Yeah, those are the most, I’d say, the worst issues or the worst threats to the environment.

Mike: So one of the stories that we’re going to talk about has to do with that, which specifically has to do with spaghetti ricci di mare, which just means spaghetti with sea urchins. What… Why is this dish so popular with tourists in Italy?

Manuela: So the dish has been in the culinary culture for centuries in certain areas of Italy, like Puglia and Sicily especially, and Sardinia, I think, as well. In these regions, ricci di mare are eaten either raw or cooked with spaghetti. What happened was that because the sea urchins have been overfished, there are areas where they don’t exist anymore. And so, for example, people from Puglia used to cross the country by land to go to Campania, where ricci di mare wasn’t a thing a few decades ago, and you used to have these ricci from sea urchins from the other side of the country, so from the opposite coast. What has happened in Campania is that requests from tourists, and some cooking shows where they have promoted this dish, has made this dish very popular in Campania as well. And so now there’s been a lot of illegal fishing in the Campania coast by local fishers. And a study that was conducted by people from the Gaiola MPA, so the Marine Protected Area in Gaiola, which is right in the south of Naples, the staff there and researchers from Genoa as well, they basically surveyed the population around the area and they discovered that within the MPA, there might be areas where the density of ricci di mare, of sea urchins, is something like 90 individuals per square meter, and outside the MPA, it goes down to 0.5, 0.2 individuals per square meter. So the entire coast has been completely stripped of sea urchins because of illegal harvesting, which is a real issue.

Mike: Yeah, so I’m just curious, what kind of effect does that have on the coastal ecosystems of Italy?

Manuela: Yeah. So sea urchins are extremely important to maintain a healthy ecosystem, and that’s because they basically graze on algae. And so they maintain a healthy amount of algae in the ecosystem. So they avoid that one more invasive species will run off and become a monoculture. They’re also food for bigger fish like sea breams, and they feed bigger predators. And in an equilibrium in the ecosystem, everything is in balance. And so you have the predators that eat the sea urchins and avoid that the sea urchin population grows too much. And at the same time, the sea urchin keeps the garden, right? They keep the garden in check. And so what happens is that if that ecosystem goes off balance, so that means you overfish the predators, for example, then the sea urchin population grows too much, and they graze on everything they find on their path. And they can create these, they call them barrens, so they can create this desert. And this is happening in certain areas of Spain, I believe, where there’s a call for removing sea urchins from certain areas because their population is growing too much. If you tip the equilibrium the other way, so if you remove the sea urchins, the predators won’t have food basically, and they will leave the area, which means that legal fishermen won’t find fish anymore in that area, right? And then algae will overgrow.

Mike: So it’s like this cascading effect where you’re not only getting rid of all the sea urchins, but you’re getting rid of all the fish which Italian communities have been relying on for many centuries, and then all of a sudden you have an influx of algae. That sounds like a really bad situation. So the thing that is really interesting here is the Italian government’s response to it. So on one hand, you’ve written that the laws governing sea urchin fishing are out of date. That’s one issue. But then the other issue is that you say poachers are going into marine protected areas at night and doing it there. And so tell us about these two competing situations. Why are these fishing laws so out of date?

Manuela: The reason why the fishers go into the marine protected area is what I said earlier. So there’s no more sea urchins elsewhere. That’s the only area, because it’s protected, it’s the only area where sea urchins are found easily. And the reason why that happened is because the law in Italy is not strict enough. And now that we are at the stage where we don’t find sea urchins in many areas that aren’t protected, Maurizio Simeone, who is the director of the Gaiola MPA, said we need very strict rules. And actually, he advocates for the complete ban of sea urchins anywhere in Italy. Why the law hasn’t been updated? Probably because it’s not considered a priority right now. You know, Italy, as many countries in Europe, as many other countries in the world really, is going through an economic crisis, right? We know that. When people struggle having enough, enough to put on the table, enough to send their kids to school, enough to afford housing, which has become a huge problem anywhere in the world, it’s a little bit difficult to consider this tiny little animal no one sees really a priority. Because often what happens is that we consider the health of the environment with our health and wealth two disconnected things, right? We don’t think of them as one thing. We don’t see one affecting the other. And especially at times of crisis, I think it becomes a little bit difficult to see a plant at the bottom of the sea, like the Posidonia, or this weird animal some people eat, becoming a priority. And I can give you a specific example of that happening in real life. One of the conversations that I had with Simeone, as I was reporting this story, he said, “Look, even if we catch these people,” and it has happened twice as I was recording this story, authorities catch these people on the spot, they give them a fine, and then these people show up in front of a judge, okay? So it really depends on the judge they find, and the judge’s sensitivity or sensibility to environmental issues, whether these people will do any jail time or will have some severe consequences. The problem is that in a place like Naples, which is one of the most difficult parts of Italy, one of the most problematic parts of Italy, a judge very easily will say, “I’m dealing with shootings, with real crimes, and illicit drug trafficking. I can’t waste my time on sea urchins. So here’s your 500 euros fine or whatever that is. Off you go. There won’t be jail time. There won’t be severe consequences for you.” Just because, yeah, you have some sea urchins, but here I have all these people who have killed somebody, and then, you know, the priorities kind of shift, and that becomes: sea urchins are not a priority.

Mike: I understand how you’re pointing it out here and how people might think that we’re disconnected from it, but I was just thinking of my own Italian grandmother and how much she loves fish, or when she was around, she would be devastated to see fish disappearing from the coastline. Aren’t Italian communities a bit frustrated, heartbroken, and hungry for the return of fish?

Manuela: Yeah. Yeah, they are. They definitely are. And again, taking the example of the Gaiola MPA, what the staff of the MPA have noticed is that the legal fishers have noticed an increase in the presence of fish in the area surrounding the MPAs because then these areas have a spillover effect. And so they’ve noticed that fish populations have now increased. But still, I think the fishing industry remains highly problematic because the only way to make it sustainable from a financial point of view and from a fisher point of view is if you have a big commercial vessel and you go out into the deeper sea. That’s a way you can survive financially. But for the smaller folks, for the smaller businesses, it has become just not sustainable to keep living off fishing. And I was in Lampedusa a week ago. It’s a teeny-tiny island off the coast south of Sicily, so it’s closer to Africa than Italy. And it’s this tiny island. It’s very dry, so there’s never been much farming or agriculture, right? And the island has always lived through fishing. But today, over 90% of fishers have turned into tourism. They just work with tourism, right? They just take tourists on tours. And there are two reasons for that. Obviously, because tourism has increased on the island in the past few decades, it’s increased a lot. But the other reason is because there are no longer fish to be caught. It has become very difficult for the small businesses to survive on fishing, and so they’ve just reinvented themselves in other ways.

Mike: Hello, listeners, and thank you for tuning in. As I always like to mention, Mongabay is a nonprofit news organization, and we rely on funding from listeners like you. So if you’d like to support the podcast, go to patreon.com/mongabay to become a monthly sponsor of the show. And if you want to read reporting from Manuela Callari, please see the links in the show notes. So let’s turn to something interesting that the Italian government is doing to protect its waters, and that’s employing sophisticated sensors to create a really detailed map of the entire coastline. Now, you’ve written about this for us, and specifically its seagrass meadows. And so this is an effort to improve management and conservation of marine habitats. So can you tell us about this initiative? What is this doing to help protect Mediterranean waters?

Manuela: Yeah. This project is part of the Marine Ecosystem Restoration, and the Marine Ecosystem Restoration is part of the PNRR, so the Italian Restoration and Recovery and Resilience Plan that was launched by the European Union after the COVID pandemic. So it’s a project that is funded with millions of euros. It’s an enormous project, and what the researchers are trying to do is to have a comprehensive map of Posidonia oceanica, which is a seagrass. It’s a plant which is unique to the Mediterranean, and they’re building a map of the entire coast of Italy, which is pretty big because Italy is thin and long and has a lot of coast.

Mike: Yeah.

Manuela: And they’re employing a lot of different kinds of sensors and satellite imaging. So the reason for doing that is because maps that we had of Posidonia oceanica were 20 to 30 years old, which means that they don’t really represent the current status of the Posidonia meadows. And in fact, through this analysis, researchers have found that, for example, Posidonia grows… It was thought to grow up to a depth of five meters, but they found meadows at much, much deeper waters, which was very surprising, and it means that they can extend that map actually much farther from the coast than it used to be. They have realized that there are areas where we thought there was no Posidonia, where there are healthy meadows, which is great, but they also have very detailed maps of the areas that have been damaged over time, and that will inform restoration efforts. So there are a lot of different projects along the Italian coast in Genoa, in Naples, in Campania, in Sardinia, where researchers are trying different kinds of methods to replant the Posidonia in areas where it used to be and now is no longer there because it’s been damaged by illegal trawling, by overtourism, pollution, heat waves. There’s a lot of threats to this plant.

Mike: So let’s pause for a second and explain why the seagrass is so important. What’s the benefit it provides to the health of an ecosystem?

Manuela: Posidonia is not just important, it is absolutely vital to the Mediterranean ecosystem. It’s a plant, so as land plants use photosynthesis to grow, it captures carbon and oxygen to do photosynthesis, but it also captures a lot of carbon from the atmosphere. And what happens is that when the plant dies, the carbon stays stored at the bottom of the sea because the leaves that die form this matter. It’s called matte. It’s basically like a gray, squishy mat where all the dead leaves settle. And because there’s a lack of oxygen at the bottom of the sea, and there’s no bacteria to decompose that organic matter, the carbon stays stored within this matter rather than being released, as happens in forests. And so the Posidonia meadows can capture up to 35% more carbon than a tropical forest, and that’s why it’s extremely important. The issue is that, as I mentioned before, if the Posidonia dies off, what happens is that slowly this carbon will be released into the atmosphere, which could be pretty devastating.

Mike: That would be bad.

Manuela: Pretty devastating. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike: So what is the state of Posidonia meadows in the Mediterranean? Are we losing them at a fast rate, or is there some hope that they can recover?

Manuela: Yeah, so the problem is that they are very slow-growing plants. So once you damage a Posidonia meadow, it takes centuries for it to recover. So if you lose a meadow today, it’s not something that you can restore in a few years. It’s something that takes a very long time. That’s why protecting the existing meadows is extremely important. Restoration is possible, but it’s a very slow process. And it’s also quite complicated because Posidonia is a plant that reproduces in different ways. It can reproduce through seeds, but it can also grow through its rhizomes, which are basically underground stems that spread horizontally. And when you have a healthy meadow, these rhizomes create this very dense structure that stabilizes the seabed. So when you lose it, you’re not just losing the plant itself, you’re losing this whole structure that protects the coastline from erosion. The problem is that there are many pressures happening at the same time. You have climate change, you have rising temperatures, you have storms becoming stronger, you have pollution, you have anchoring from boats. All of these things affect Posidonia. One of the biggest problems is anchoring because boats drop their anchors directly on the meadows, and when they pull the anchor back up, they destroy large sections of the plant. And sometimes you have these scars in the meadows that remain for decades because the plant grows so slowly.

Mike: You mentioned anchoring there, and that connects to tourism. I think that’s a really important point because when people visit places like the Mediterranean, they might think of themselves as just enjoying the natural environment, but their presence can have a big impact. How much of an issue is tourism pressure?

Manuela: Tourism is a huge issue, especially because the Mediterranean is one of the most visited regions in the world. Millions and millions of people come every year, and many of them come because of the sea, because of the beaches, because of the beautiful coastal landscapes. But often the same things that attract people are the things that are being damaged by tourism. For example, you have boats anchoring everywhere during the summer. You have more wastewater entering coastal areas. You have more construction along the coast. You have more plastic waste. And the problem is that many of these impacts are concentrated in a few months because tourism is very seasonal. So you have this enormous pressure during the summer, and then in winter, things calm down again. But the damage that happens during those few months remains. I think one of the things that is really important is education. People come to the Mediterranean because they love it, but many people don’t understand what they are seeing. They see a beautiful blue sea, but they don’t know that underneath there is this incredibly important ecosystem. They don’t know that the plant they are anchoring on is hundreds or thousands of years old. They don’t know that the fish they see depend on these habitats. So I think education is a very important part of the solution.

Mike: That’s an interesting point because it seems like there is almost a disconnect between people loving nature and understanding how their actions affect it. Do you think that’s one of the biggest challenges in conservation generally?

Manuela: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges. People love nature, but sometimes they love an idea of nature rather than understanding the complexity of ecosystems. They love the beach, they love the landscape, they love seeing fish when they go snorkeling, but they don’t always understand what allows that ecosystem to exist. And I think this is why storytelling is so important. Because sometimes people need to understand the connection between something that seems very small and something much bigger. For example, the sea urchin. Someone might think, “It’s just a little animal. Why does it matter?” But then you explain that this little animal is connected to algae, it’s connected to fish populations, it’s connected to the livelihoods of people who depend on fishing. Suddenly it becomes part of a much bigger story. The same with Posidonia. Someone might see a meadow under the water and think it’s just a plant, but actually it’s protecting the coastline, it’s storing carbon, it’s providing habitat for many species. Everything is connected.

Mike: One of the things that stood out to me from your reporting is that there are so many different pressures on the Mediterranean, but there are also solutions. What gives you hope when you look at this region?

Manuela: What gives me hope is that people are starting to understand that these ecosystems are important. I think ten or twenty years ago, there was much less awareness about marine ecosystems compared to forests, for example. Forests have always had this very strong symbolic importance, but the ocean was more distant. People didn’t see what was happening underneath the water. Now, thanks also to technology, documentaries, photography, and journalism, people are starting to understand what is there. They are starting to understand that the ocean is not empty. There is this incredible world beneath the surface. And there are also many people working on the ground. There are researchers, marine protected area staff, fishers, local communities, and organizations trying to find solutions. The Gaiola Marine Protected Area is a good example. It’s a small area, but it shows that if you protect a place, nature can respond. Fish populations can recover. Ecosystems can improve. The problem is that we need to do this at a much larger scale. Small protected areas are important, but they cannot solve everything alone. We need better management, better enforcement, better laws, and we need to change the way we use the sea.

Mike: Before we wrap up, I want to return to the beginning of our conversation. You mentioned that the Mediterranean is small in terms of its size, but incredibly important globally. Why do you think people outside the region should care about what happens there?

Manuela: I think what the rest of the world probably doesn’t really understand or is not aware of is how this very small area of the world has a big impact, not only on that area, but on the rest of the world. We’ve talked about carbon capture. We’ve talked about an incredible amount of biodiversity. If that’s lost, it’s lost for everybody, not just for the people living around the Mediterranean Sea. And I think that’s still not understood very well. People think of the Mediterranean as a holiday destination, as a place to go on vacation, but they don’t think about it as one of the most important ecosystems on the planet. And I think that’s something that needs to change.

Mike: Manuela Callari, thank you so much for joining me today.

Manuela: Thank you for having me.

Mike: You can find links to Manuela’s reporting and all of the resources we discussed in the show notes. As always, if you’re enjoying the Mongabay Newscast or any of our podcast content and you want to help us out, we encourage you to spread the word about the work we’re doing by telling a friend and leaving a review. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to help expand our reach. You can also support us by becoming a monthly sponsor through our Patreon page at patreon.com/mongabay. Mongabay is a nonprofit news outlet, so even pledging a dollar per month makes a very big difference and helps us offset production costs. So if you’re a fan of our audio reports from Nature’s Frontline, go to patreon.com/mongabay to learn more and support the Mongabay Newscast. You can also read our news and inspiration from Nature’s Frontline at mongabay.com or follow Mongabay on social media. Find Mongabay on LinkedIn at Mongabay News and on Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and TikTok, where our handle is @mongabay, and on YouTube at Mongabay TV. Thank you, as always, for listening.