The female fishers of the Delta Mara is inside the 'cavana', the stilt houses used by fishermen for breeding mussels and clams and for sheltering boats.Aquaculture in the Scardovari lagoon has been developing since the 1970s through the Polesine Cooperative Fishermen, which is currently the EU's leading shellfish producer with a workforce of 1,470 producers, almost half of whom are female. Scardovari, 2023 March 7

Photographer Isabella Franceschini has been awarded the prestigious Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award 2024, for her work ‘The Leap of Fish that Dream of Flying’.  The Leap of Fish that Dream of Flying is a series that acknowledges our changing and mutual relationship with the environment and sustainable development.

Franceschini’s work focuses on the decommissioning of the Polesine Camerini thermoelectric plant, the largest in Italy, now inactive, which is set to be transformed into an eco-friendly tourist facility based on a project involving local institutions and the local population. The project documents the conflicting environmental challenges of this area since 2015. Humans have both benefited from this environment, through activities such as mussel farming, and yet also exploited it with the industrial site of the thermoelectric power plant.

This transformation enables a renewed and balanced coexistence between humans and nature, paving the way for a future of unexplored and fertile possibilities.

To find out more please go to the direct link.