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With its magnificent coasts and deep, rocky water, Corsica offers a haven for fish and shellfish, including the famous red lobster. Victim of overfishing, it must nevertheless be preserved. Solutions are successfully tested by scientists to preserve the species.
Centuri (Haute-Corse), a small fishing port on Cap Corse, is renowned for its beauty, but also for its local star: the red lobster. Fished for centuries, it is on the menu of all the restaurants in the village. At Marie-Pierre Alessandrini, chef of the restaurant Le Vieux Moulin, it is presented to customers, before being cooked to order. She also uses an old recipe from her grandmother, based on rum. To go from the sea to the plate, only a few hours are needed.
It is 5 a.m. when Doumé Strina, a fisherman, leaves to take in his nets offshore. The lobster is his livelihood. “It’s about 50% of our turnover”, he notes. Lobster fishing is seasonal: from March to September. Today, Doumé Strina is one of the last five fishermen in the village. Pierre Carrara, the former mayor of Centuri, experienced the prosperous period of the lobster. “Fifty years ago, there were about twenty fishermen who went fishing for lobster almost every morning”he recalls.
In Bastia (Haute-Corse), Antoine Aiello, director of the Stella Mare Research Unit – CNRS, is working with his team on juvenile lobster. “The objective is really ecological restoration with juveniles, and to have this biodiversity which recolonizes an area”he explains.