Places

Malabar Coast Filled with canals, rice paddies, and fishing villages. The people are remarkably beautiful and fully literate. The Zhoushan Islands of China These islands, south of Shanghai, provide a major base for Chinese fisheries, and also include Putuo, an important Buddhist center. Gacka (GOT ska) A lovely pastoral valley, tranquil and away from madding crowds.

During my years as a fisheries economist I had the great good fortune of being able to travel to many spots throughout the world, and the equally happy circumstance of living in the heart of downtown Rome, Italy.

On my travels, I always took my camera and used it especially to record the small scale fisheries and fishing communities that I visited. My mentors in this were Rolf Willmann (my colleague at FAO), who first opened my eyes to the reality of life in a fishing community, and John Kurien (economist at the Center for Development Studies in Trivandrum, India). They both have absolute integrity and complete dedication to improving the welfare of impoverished fish workers.

The Malabar Coast

The Malabar Coast runs from the southern tip of India up to Cochin on the Arabian Sea. It’s in the State of Kerala and includes important fishing areas, canals and rice paddies. The people are exceptionally beautiful and 100% literate.

The Zhoushan Islands of China

My mentors in this were Rolf Willmann (my colleague at FAO), and John Kurien (economist at the Center for Development Studies in Trivandrum, India) who first opened my eyes to the reality of life in small scale fishing communities. They both have absolute integrity and complete dedication to improving the welfare of impoverished fish workers.

The Gacka River

During the 1980’s my wife and I spent every September on the banks of the Gacka (GOT ska) River in Croatia, fly fishing for trout. Every now and then a peasant would come up to us and, after asking how many children we had, would point up or downstream and say "ima riba", stretching arms far apart to indicate the size of the fish that could be found there. I adopted imariba as my company name. We returned to the Gacka, after the tragic war, in 2000 and now continue our annual visits.

The valley is beautiful; a flat plain surrounded by mountains. The river rises full blown from springs at the head and disappears into a hole in the ground at the end. The fishing is extraordinarily difficult.

(In the future this site may include photos from Morocco, the Maldive Islands, Bangkok, Tuscany and Umbria, Malaysia, and more.)