Piccole aragoste crescono (2013)

This film tells the story of a small environmental miracle that occurred in the Sardinian sea. Starring Gianni Usai, who had worked at the FIAT Mirafiori factory where in the 70's he took part to the worker's protests, before returning to his home town in Sardinia to become a lobster fisherman with a challenging goal: make a living from the sea without killing it. In the following years the increasing decline of the Mediterranean fish stocks became apparent also in Sardinia, and led Usai to seek the help of the University of Cagliari to jointly design the first recovery project of the spiny lobster in the Mediterranean. This unusual partnership between science and fishing practices produced impressive results with an increase of over 550% of the lobster biomass within the protected areas. "At the end of the 90's" said Gianni Usai "we realized that we were close to the extinction of our lobsters, mainly because of trawling and also because many fishermen kept fishing baby lobsters without respecting the minimum landing size. In only a few years the catches dropped from 13 to 1 tons. We had to do something and so we tested the recovery project. Today, our fishermen are finally realizing that they can turn from predators into guardians of the sea." This documentary uses a visual language that captures the deep commitment of the fishermen that truly care about the future of our oceans and of those that depend on it.