Towards a history of sponge harvesting in the Mediterranean: a focus on the Kalymnos fishery between the two wars

The production of Mediterranean bath sponges collapsed during the past century, as is shown by Tunisian catches, which fell from 108 tons in 1920 to 9 tons in 1988. A further illustration is provided by the well-known sponge-fishing island of Kalymnos, which lost about 90% of its active sponge-fisher population over the century between 1858 and 1967. What are the reasons for this dramatic decline of a once prosperous Mediterranean traditional fishery? What part of the decline can be attributed to the progressive reduction of the bath sponge stock, and what to a decreasing number of fishermen? How might this sponge fishery collapse be related to changes in uses, overfishing, and disease outbreaks triggered by climate events? How did sponge fishermen adapt to Regional Changes in the past? What is the future of such a fishery? What kind of guidelines can we provide for this fishery facing ongoing Regional Change? To answer these questions, the SACOLEVE programme looks through ecological and historical windows into the past evolution of the sponge fishery, which is chosen here as a model of traditional fishery that has suffered a good number of upheavals over the past three centuries. The overall aim of this programme is to propose a management strategy for traditional fisheries that will open the way to eco-durable practices in the current environmental, socio-economic and geopolitical contexts. Greek sponge fishing fleets came from the surroundings of the Saronic Gulf, the Dodecanese and some islands of the North Sporades. But nowadays sponge fishing is to be found only on the island of Kalymnos. One of the elements that can explain its persistence there is that the maintenance of a variety of methods used has enabled this community to adapt to different fishing areas and to changing socio-political conditions. After presenting a general view of Mediterranean sponge fishing, this paper details the variety of methods used by Kalymnian sponge fishermen in the period between the two world wars. ________________ The Mediterranean sponge fishery was once a prosperous industry, harvesting hundreds of tons of natural sponges that were sold throughout the world. It has gone through many upheavals, and although today, in some places, it remains a strong culturally anchored activity, the fishery has declined dramatically. The reasons for, and mechanisms of, this decline are studied through the SACOLEVE programme 1 that looks through ecological and historical windows into past evolutions. Our aim is to propose a management strategy for traditional fisheries that will open the way to eco-durable practices in the current environmental, socio-economic and political contexts. Knowledge of sponge species and the use of bath sponges in the Mediterranean existed already in antiquity. 2 Later, during the second century BC, Oppian of Cilicia (Αλιευτικά, 5.612) described the activity as a fishing profession, and he detailed the methods and the habits of the sponge divers. But it was not until the mid-19th century that sponge commerce and harvesting expanded extensively in the Mediterranean area. With the industrial development of countries such as France, Great Britain, Germany and the United States of America, the demand for sponges for the cleaning and maintenance of machinery exploded, and this created a market that was difficult to satisfy. Tunisia, Greece and the Ottoman Empire were the main sponge producers at the time, and they needed to maintain and intensify the harvesting rhythm. By the late 1880s, Greece, whose sponge fishing force was at that time limited to fishermen from Trikeri, Hydra, Spetses, Aegina and Hermioni, was exporting between 150 and 222 tons annually. In 1889, Tunisia exported over 53 tons, Greece 160, and Kalymnos, the well-known sponge Maïa Fourt, Thierry Pérez, Daniel Faget 86 fishing island of the South Sporades (then under Ottoman rule), 180 tons. This gives a figure of nearly 400 tons of sponges harvested and exported annually from the Mediterranean. Greek and insular Ottoman fishermen travelled long distances during their six month campaigns, harvesting sponges from Northern Greece, the Turkish coasts, Syria, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, and bringing them back to their port of registry to be sold. But at the start of the 20th century quantities rapidly decreased and although there was a recovery of production after World War II, the quantities produced in the latter years were much lower in comparison. Mediterranean bath sponge species and harvesting techniques Sponges live attached to the bottom of all seas and at all depths. Of the numerous species of sponges existing worldwide, only a very small proportion are commercially exploited for their skeleton of spongin and their absorptive qualities. Among the fifteen species exploited worldwide, four can be found in the Mediterranean Sea: Hippospongia communis, Spongia officinalis, Spongia lamella, and Spongia zimocca. They thrive in various habitats and at different depths from a few metres to over 100 metres, and vary in commercial value depending on the species but also, for a given species, depending on the area or even the depth where they were harvested. The techniques used for sponge harvesting have varied greatly over the past 200 years and, by their introduction or their persistence, are indicative of the socio-economic situation of the producer societies and the state of things in the buyer countries. In fisheries, the question of the evolution of the technical means and techniques of fishing is crucial. As in other sectors, sponge fishing was subject to the arrival of new techniques, which at the start were often imposed, and which significantly changed the pressure on the resources. Harvesting techniques can be divided into two basic groups. In the first category are the traditional methods, some of which have been used for millennia. The most spectacular is the naked diving (apnoea diving) that has been used for centuries by the inhabitants of the islands of Symi 8 and Kalymnos in particular. The naked divers descended to the bottom of the sea while holding their breath, and with a net hung round their necks to hold the sponges that lived attached to the seabed. The technique was greatly improved, apparently by Symiots, in c.1840. They added the use of a marble slab known as the scandalópetra or cambanellópetra to enable the divers to reach the seabed more quickly and more accurately. Attached with a cord passing through a hole in the stone, this meant that the stone and the diver holding it were constantly connected to the boat. This ensured that the diver could be pulled up faster at the end of the dive or in the event of a problem, but it also made it possible to exchange simple information between the diver and the crew by means of tugging on the cord. This very simple introduction of the marble slab already greatly changed this traditional way of fishing. It was then further improved by the use of a small string forming two rings – one around the diver’s wrist, and the second forming a loop through which the main cord of the slab passed. With this system, in the event that the diver fainted, by hauling in the cord attached to the slab the crew could pull up the diver even if he was unconscious. Naked diving was practised by small family groups and required minimal investment. The harvest may have been smaller than that of other techniques, but the sponges were of good quality and well preserved. This technique, which was still in use before World War II, progressively changed into free diving using belt weights, a face mask and a wetsuit. Free diving is still practised nowadays, sometimes in Greece for sponge prospecting, and in Tunisia for harvesting at depths of under 15 metres. Another ancient technique traditionally used by sponge fishermen of Hermioni, Aegina and the surroundings consists of scanning the bottom of the sea with a yali, a sort of The Kalymnos fishery between the two wars 87 bucket with a glass bottom (also used by the naked divers), and using a long pole ending in a trident (kamáki) to detach the sponges, a process carried out from on board the boat. Like the naked sponge diving, the kamáki did not need much investment, and was therefore accessible to greater numbers of people, as long as sponges were present at small depths. But good quality sponges were often marked by the trident, and they also became scarce at small depths in Greece. Nowadays this technique is only sporadically observed, in the Gulf of Gabes around Djerba or the Kerkennah islands (Tunisia). The third traditional technique used was the gangáva. Although it appeared later than the first two, by 1865 there were already 300 gangáva boats operating in Greece. We have therefore included it as one of the traditional means. This technique gradually came into use among the sponge fishermen of the South Sporades, where it was introduced around 1860. However, it was traditionally used by the Asia Minor sponge fleet, as in Bodrum village where in 1891, for example, the fleet was composed exclusively of 40 gangáva boats. The technique was later introduced into Tunisia by the Greeks, in around 1875, and was then rapidly adopted by Italian and Maltese sponge fishermen. The gangáva is a kind of dredge, pulled by a boat, consisting of a robust trapezoid net with a mouth held open by a rectangular metallic frame having a metal bar in the lower part that dragged on the bottom scraping up the sponges. Pulled by a traditional sailing boat, or later by a boat with an engine, at depths of up to 100-110 metres, the gangáva could be operated only on flat seabeds. Production therefore depended on the nature of the fishing environment, but also on the legislation of the countries that progressively limited or banned this blind and destructive method of fishing sponges. In contemporary times, further systems resulted from the mechanisation of under-water diving. These techn