Islands are often seen as small-scale laboratories for global issues, but also as excellent pilots for innovation. Artisanal fishers in the Mediterranean island of Pantelleria, located between Tunisia and Sicily, are facing a year-on-year decline in their fishing yields. The combined pressures of large-scale destructive industrial fishing, which is still partly present today and has mechanically damaged the seabed and the benthic habitats, with the aspects relating to climate change, are seriously compromising the Mediterranean marine ecosystem structure and functioning. Posidonia oceanica meadows are uprooted, sandy bottoms destructured, and rocky bottoms scraped, marine life is deprived of support, and the food and economic security of populations is called into question.

The state of degradation is such that marine ecosystems are also losing resilience in the face of climate change and invasive species: active restoration of key habitats has become a necessity. An interdisciplinary collaboration of fishers, researchers and environmental organization have participated. The engineer species that guarantee the structure and functionality of the ecosystem will be reinstalled. Approximately, 300 Posidonia plants (essential nursery and carbon sink, in particular), 100 sponge fragments (water purification and filtration, promotes links with the pelagic environment), and 500 gorgonian cuttings (densification of the habitat through bushes, life support for erect fauna) will be relocated in a specific relevant area of the island.

Field surveys to reconstruct the history of lost biodiversity will serve as a basis for defining restoration objectives while maximizing ownership of the project by the island’s inhabitants. The ‘before/after’ monitoring using a Citizen Science project involving trained local divers, and the 3D photogrammetry, a cutting-edge imaging technique, will enhance local actors engagement and faciilitate the visualization of the impacts of the restoration activities to the public, showing the expected return of marine life. Thanks to these arguments, institutional levers will be activated to enable the island to complete its technical and economic transition towards sustainably managed fishing and diversification towards non-extractive activities such as ecotourism.