More ancient than agriculture or animal domestication, fishing has always been based on a profound relationship between coastal communities and the sea. The past 50 years have seen this relationship altered beyond recognition. Today fish has become an industrial product, measured in tons and valued only as a commodity. Fishermen live on enormous factory boats and their work is as repetitive as an assembly line.

The process of pulling fish from the sea is controlled by echosounders, computers and satellites, and uses nets many kilometers long. But small-scale coastal fishing has not completely disappeared. In the Mediterranean, the Pacific and other seas and oceans around the world, little boats still push off from the shore every day, catching only certain varieties of fish in certain seasons, using selective nets and fishing techniques and preserving ancient knowledge and traditions.

Slow Food has identified many of these groups and brought them into the Terra Madre network of food communities. With some, projects have been set up to protect and promote their traditions: the Sea Presidia.


The Sea Presidia are concrete examples of protection, organization and promotion. They show how small-scale fishing communities can live in harmony with their environment, safeguarding sealife and adding value to their work by supplying a good, wholesome and fresh daily catch or by making high-quality preserved products like mullet bottarga, salted anchovies, palamita in extra-virgin olive oil and marinated eel.


There will be 25 Presidia taking part in Slow Fish, 15 from Italy and 10 from the rest of the world (Croatia, Mauritania, Morocco, Norway, Spain and the Netherlands) and around 10 food communities, from France, Spain, Morocco, Israel and more.
The Presidia invited to Slow Fish are not just those for fish and seafood, but also include ingredients used in cooking fish like extra-virgin olive oil, salt, garlic and herbs.


The Presidia are located within the Slow Fish Market, on the upper level of the Genoa Fiera’s Pavilion B.


The Market is open when Slow Fish is open: on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 11 pm and on Monday from 11 am to 8 pm.

Click here for the complete list
of the Sea Presidia at Slow Fish >