Good practice:

Enaleia - protection of the marine environment through the education of fishing communities

Enaleia provides local fishing communities with an education in order to make them able to participate in the global climate action, joining its main actions. Firstly, we train fishers to participate in the “Mediterranean CleanUp” project, making them to collect plastic from the bottom of the sea and to bring it to us to integrate it into the circular economy, but also to prevent their used plastic equipment to end up in the sea promoting it as well to the circular economy. Also, we provide training to fishermen to join our “Fish Smarter” project, teaching them how they can avoid overfishing, increasing their income, utilizing modern models like sustainable fishing tourism. What we do is to conduct tailor-made workshops accustomed to the particular needs of these communities, the majority of which are people with low educational level, making them understand and realize the socio-environmental benefits from their participation in our actions. Until today we have collaborated with more than 1.000 fishers in Greece and Italy with success. Through its actions, Enaleia has developed a strong network throughout Greece, consisting of professional fishermen, NGOs, research centers, charitable institutions as well as local authorities, recycling companies and ordinary citizens who assist as volunteers.

The annual budget of the project depends on the characteristics of the programs, like the number of the fishermen that participate. An average annual budget is 150.000 EUR including the costs for 3 Full Time and 2 Part Time employees.

Μore than 150 unemployed fishers are connected directly with the job market through the fishing school; Through the “Mediterranean CleanUp” project more than 1.000 fishers were trained to collect plastic from the bottom of the sea, having collected more than 150.000 marine plastic so far; Through the “Fish Smarter” project more than 100 fishers are trained on exploiting sustainable fishing tourism; L. Arapakis (Director-Cofounder) is awarded as the European Young Champion of the Earth for 2020.

The most critical (internal) concern has been the mobilization of the fishing community, since until recently, fishermen were regarded as part of the problem. However, we have achieved to alter this concept by targeting social inclusion and making these social groups a critical part of the solution.

Our projects and impact are based on education and the fishing economic activity. For this reason, each of our projects could be easily replicated in any place of the world that faces significant marine plastic and overfishing problems and where fishermen could participate to be part of the solution. It is indicative that our main project began a couple of years ago from 1 port and now we operate in 21 ports in 2 different countries, being ready to expand our operation in 4 additional countries on three different continents.
The most important element for transferring our knowledge and impact to new communities. Talking regularly with the fishermen of our network, we realize that our impact on them is impressive since now they know themselves that there are ways to maintain or increase their incomes without harming the sea. This notion could be easily transferred from a fisherman in Athens of Greece to a fisherman in the Gulf of Maine of the USA or a fisherman in Lamu of Kenya.