Sailing Across a Wounded Sea

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara is a marine ecologist who spent his life trying to shoehorn scientific evidence into policy and politics. So far, he must admit that he has largely failed, despite episodical successes here and there. He is fascinated by devil rays and horrified by seafood after a childhood encounter with a trout gone bad. When he is not on the Greek island of Patmos he spends his time in Milan, thinking of ways to get back to Patmos.

The capacity of humans to destroy their environment is playing out like a Greek tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea. After having coexisted with a diversity of marine animals throughout their history, humans have broken the balance in recent decades, and the survival of countless marine creatures is now increasingly uncertain. However, unlike in classical tragedies, real-life entities are not necessarily doomed by their fate, and there must be hope to turn the tide in nature's favour. Lack of concrete conservation action might be simply due to a lack of awareness: how can we feel sad about a loss if we don't know what we are losing? 

"Sailing Across a Wounded Sea" is the story of an ideal journey around the Mediterranean to meet its non-human inhabitants, consisting of real episodes collected over half a century as the author observed real animals, exchanged views with a variety of contacts, and argued for such views in the policy arena. Encountering whales, dolphins,seals and rays in their habitat and on their terms will hopefully contribute to building up in readers a collective commitment to help secure a future for these species. A future where they are allowed to flourish as they were meant to - had humans never trod so heavily on the sea's delicate ecological balance and the interwoven natural processes.

Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara has been involved for a lifetime in protecting marine biodiversity in various capacities - as a scientist, civil servant, advocate and sailor. Having studied in California and worked with whales, dolphins and sharks worldwide, he returned to the Mediterranean in 1985, keen on using his acquired tools to discover more about the ancient sea's natural history. Here, he described small but vibrant populations of fin and sperm whales, along with various species of dolphins, manta rays and the monk seal. At the same time, seeing the Mediterranean's progressive degradation at the hands of humans, he felt a surge of rebellion against this squandering of natural values, and wished to raise awareness of the existence of these marine natural treasures and the risk of losing them.

Chapter 1. Introduction: Mediterranean Stories Worth Telling.- Chapter 2. Venice.- Chapter 3. Adriatic Sea - From Venice to Otranto.- Chapter 4. Ionian Sea - From Otranto to Corinth.- Chapter 5. Aegean Sea - From Corinth to Rhodes.- Chapter 6. Levantine Sea - From Rhodes to Paleochora.- Chapter 7. Southern Mediterranean - From Paleochora to Carloforte.- Chapter 8. Pillars of Hercules - From Carloforte to Tarifa.- Chapter 9. Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals - From Tarifa to Sanremo.- Chapter 10. Epilogue - Patmos.