Protecting the environment, as a public good, is of fundamental importance both for human life and for the survival of the whole ecosystem. The environment and all the resources that people use, following the logic dictated by the maximisation of profit, are put to an excessive and opportunistic use.
This article sets out to bring to light the hard work carried out by the Cooperativa Pescatori del Trasimeno that has fought for years against the deterioration of the Umbrian lake area. Before we go into the analysis of Lake Trasimeno, it is essential to clarify a few concepts. Why has this particular case been chosen? Fish stocks can be classed among renewable resources, that is, resources that are easy to exploit, and this makes their analysis even more difficult than that of non-renewable resources (in the case of Lake Trasimeno, the only analyses of the fish families present in the area reach us thanks to the work of the fishermen).

For clarity, let us distinguish inexhaustible renewable resources, that is, those with a continuous life cycle (think of solar energy), from exhaustible ones (such as fish), where the available stock is not always constant and its exploitation cannot be unlimited. Precisely because they are not liable to run out quickly, such resources have (wrongly) aroused less interest on the part of public opinion. Fundamental here is the capacity of the fish resource to reproduce (unfortunately not without limit, and even if the body of water in question were left untouched by human beings it would still have problems with the normal balances of life), and so the work of the fishermen is important, since in theory it removes what the resource itself produces in excess.

What happens in almost every ecosystem, denounced both by Hardin (1968) and by Elinor Ostrom (2006), is that people choose to use the basin excessively, in some cases driving certain species to extinction. The capacity of a resource made up of living beings (in this case fish) to reproduce therefore depends on the ability to exploit it while at the same time preserving and safeguarding it. It is important to stress that the environment in which the fish resource lives is dynamic, and the conservation of the individual species depends on human beings, yes, but above all on the relationships that are established within the aquatic ecosystem.
The work of the fishermen can have both positive and negative effects; among the latter, we would stress that if the quantity of fish taken exceeds the available stock, environmental problems will follow, and even though we are talking about a renewable resource, the danger of extinction cannot be ruled out. Among the positive effects, it is worth recalling that if the resource is not harvested and the area in question is left in a wild state, survival problems will arise (imbalances between predator and prey).

The fisherman therefore intervenes, yes, to harvest the resource for the purposes of exploitation, but also in order to reach an acceptable stock level and thus safeguard the balances of the area in question.

Given the possibility of the extinction of biodiversity or the deterioration of the basin, it is our duty to consolidate a sustainable economy and an environmental ethic in order to smooth over the opportunistic behaviour of human beings. One way to avert such behaviour is the application of the theories of Civil Economy, a new way of seeing the market based on relational goods and on values such as respect, reciprocity and sustainability, often forgotten by the market as it now stands (L. Bruni & S. Zamagni, 2004). This alternative path entrusts the administration and management of the common good to cooperatives, since they have an ethical, sustainable and community-based approach. The example that interweaves sustainability and cooperation is precisely the Cooperativa Pescatori del Trasimeno.

I chose to speak about sustainability and to examine this Cooperative in order to raise awareness of, and bring to light, climate change, a subject of the utmost topicality.
With global warming, Trasimeno too has felt the effects of this problem, which has brought a substantial rise in temperatures, resulting in the extinction or reduction of the fish fauna, a lowering of the waters and a marshy climate that has led to an increase in insects and invasive plants, making life and fishing more difficult.

Fish are the first animals to feel the effects of pollution; suffice it to say that the size of the fish in Lake Trasimeno has doubled and their very morphology has undergone significant changes (up to 30 years ago the perch was half the size it is now!).
On 16 January 2019 I went in person to the Cooperativa Pescatori del Trasimeno to administer a questionnaire relevant to my degree thesis, and that morning I was also able to see the return of the fishermen who had set out during the night, the premises based at San Feliciano (Perugia), and to meet the director of the Cooperative, Valter Sembolini.
The questions I put were essential to understanding the activities carried out by the Cooperative under study: it is not concerned only with maximising its own profit but has at heart the common good and the entire ecosystem of Lake Trasimeno. Its refusal to use plastic, its wish to survey and help all the fauna present in that area (including the water birds so often regarded as harmful to the fishermen’s activity) and its close collaboration with Legambiente for the collection of polluting objects give the Cooperative a considerable added value and make it a source of great pride for the whole Umbria region. I saw Valter Sembolini talking with the fishermen just back from fishing, and the great respect he has for all his member-employees and employees; he himself treats the fish resource with great care, and within the Cooperative waste is kept to a minimum, with all the fish processed and transformed.

What emerged from this questionnaire?
1) Climate change has hugely affected the Cooperative’s work over the years;
2) Unfortunately, in the coming years the same available stock of resources will no longer exist;

3) Over the years, species have unwittingly been introduced that have caused the extinction of native species. Among the species that have disappeared, we may recall the rovella (Rutilus rubilio), which vanished in the 1990s;
4) The Cooperative, despite the deterioration of the area (due mainly to the previous points), tries to make up for all those interventions that ought to be entrusted to a state body.
The Cooperative has at heart not only sustainability but also human capital, and it can boast within its ranks as many as 30 fishermen-members, all with the right to vote. In the 1920s the local fishermen set up the cooperative for a shared, mutualistic purpose: to secure adequate equipment, goods and services, better working conditions and also the right to vote at the assemblies.
We are dealing with a case that is not only historic but also succeeds in putting concretely into practice the Civil Economy proposed by Stefano Zamagni (2005).
I examined this cooperative and the ecosystem of Lake Trasimeno in order to demonstrate concretely both the climate change (by now almost irreversible) and the measures adopted by this Cooperative to ensure sustainability, ethics and the cooperation among people that leads to a respect for a resource of great quality, one that deserves to be defended and protected.

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Gloria Sabatini graduated in Philosophy and Ethics of Relationships (Philosophy and Civil Economy track) at the Department of Philosophy, Social and Human Sciences and Education of the University of Perugia. Her personal interest in protecting the environment was fundamental in enabling her to write her experimental degree thesis: “An Analysis of Sustainable Fishing in the Lake Trasimeno Area. Commons, Cooperation and Ethics”.