This work was supported by a grant of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS - UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-1238, within PNCDI III.
Ionuț Geană (Associate Professor at Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, CS, Institute of Linguistics "Iorgu Iordan - Alexandru Rosetti" of the Romanian Academy) streamlined the flow and message of this manuscript.
1Motto
“When you work against nature, you spoil it.” (Former ship commander)
“Man sanctifies the place, but also desolates it.” (Romanian Language and Literature teacher from Rast)
2Freshwater fish are a valuable food and commercial resource, yet increasingly threatened as species or populations (Moyle and Leidy, 2023). Fish were key elements that attracted humans in large rivers, deltas, estuaries, and wetlands. Hence, these inland habitats of fish were severely impacted by various anthropogenic activities such as water extraction and uses, habitat alteration for navigation, hydropower production and flood control, pollution, invasion of alien species, commercial exploitation or global warming (Schletterer et al., 2019; Kuo et al., 2021; Moyle and Leidy, 2023). Human impacts decrease the resilience of fish fauna, the decline of the diversity or even the extinction of certain species (Bănăduc et al., 2016; Moyle and Leidy, 2023). As examples, the migration of certain species has been affected by dams as in the case of sturgeons on the Volga and Danube rivers (Schletterer et al., 2018, 2019). The fish habitats for everyday functions (feeding and resting) and critical stages (breeding and refuge) have been affected by dykes that disrupted the hydrological cross connectivity as in the case of the Danube and Prut rivers (Vlad et al., 2013).
3“Fishing” or “fish dependent” communities have accommodated fish fauna evolution, as well as other related social, economic, and politic dynamics (Delgado-Ramírez et al., 2022). For example, in the Danube Delta, historically and to this day, fishing has been the emblematic activity of local communities, both economically as the main revenue for locals over the past two centuries, and culturally as a dominant dimension of local identity (Dorondel and Mitroi, 2017). Moreover, fishermen have an outstanding ecological knowledge due to long term observations that leads to a deep understanding of fish populations, their habitats, and migratory patterns, and generally environmental conditions and ecosystem functioning (de Sousa et al., 2022). In particular, women have identified a variety of fishes as food sources or their disappearance (Posner, 2016). In this context, contextualizing the role of various factors in the establishment of local communities is essential for identifying and addressing (in)equitable processes and outcomes in fish and environmental related policy design and management (Lein and Setiawina, 2018; Delgado-Ramírez et al., 2022). Most of the time the stories of those directly involved are different from those of the authorities, stories that often are not even listened to by those who make decisions on their behalf.
4Therefore, the aim of our study is to reveal changes that have occurred in “fishing communities”, with a focus on the Lower Danube River in Romania. Traditional “fishing communities” have been affected by agricultural policy change, including fishery, that have transformed their lifestyle. The first part of the paper is a geohistorical approach of the last century and synthesizes landscape changes and the evolution of practices in fishery. It is a review of previous publications, with demonstration on old maps and recent satellite imagery for three case studies. The second part narrates the story of “fishing communities” as told during interviews with riparian population and fishermen, and through participatory observations of fishing activities in three case studies. It shows how local communities have understood environmental changes and adapted their way of life (occupation, daily meal, traditions).
5The Lower Danube River has typical temperate continental hydrological regime with high flows in May and low flows in October (mean annual discharge of ~5 750 m3/s at Giurgiu). The river forms a lowland anabranching river system with a wide floodplain on the Romanian bank.
6At the beginning of the 20th century, under quasi-natural conditions, the floodplain had small depth lakes and large wetlands that were spawning sites for fish, and floods allowed for water circulation in the floodplain. The Danube floodplain in Romania suffered severe transformations during the 20th century. According to the references cited in Ioana-Toroimac (2014), the damming of the Romanian Danube floodplain began in the early 20th century in order to make it economically profitable and to reduce the risk of water-related diseases and, thus, in the 1930s, 7% of the floodplain area was embanked. During the 1960s, embankment and drainage works were carried out in the Lower Danube River floodplain. The intensification of these actions is explained by the need to increase agricultural production after the World War 2, when Romania had to pay compensation in raw materials, including agro-food products to the USSR, which was possible by force under a communist regime (1948-1989). About 84% of the floodplain area along the Romanian Danube is embanked and about 70% is affected by drainage (Hein et al., 2016). Other changes have been observed, such as modifications in the local topography and salinization of the floodplain soils, reduction in plant and avifaunal diversity. In post-communism (after 1990), these transformations have formally maintained. Small parts of the floodplain as well as former drainage channels have been restored to wetlands (Clius et al., 2022; Ioana-Toroimac, 2024).
7Figures 1-4 are demonstrative for the transformations of the Danube River floodplain in Romania. Old maps from around year 1900 show small lakes in the vicinity of Salcia (Mehedinți county), Rast (Dolj county) and Gostinu (Giurgiu county) villages. Present-day satellite imageries show impressive transformations. In the vicinity of Salcia village, a fish pond was created by building levees inside the previous lake. By contrast, the floodplains of Rast and Gostinu were embanked, drained, and transformed into crop lands and pastures.
Figure 1. The Lower Danube River as study area: 1 – embankments according to Știucă and Nichersu, 2006; 2 – reservoir dams of Iron Gates (IG); 3 – city over 100,000 inhabitants.
Photos by Cornelia Florea show: a fishing boat on the Danube in Salcia; the drained floodplain or what remained of the previous lake of Rast; fishermen on the Danube bank in Gostinu.
Figure 2. Land use change in the vicinity of Salcia village: 1 – water; 2 – wetland; 3 – alluvial bar; 4 – forest; 5 – built up area; 6 – other land use (meadow/agriculture).
Figure 3. Land use change in the vicinity of Rast village: 1 – water; 2 – wetland; 3 – alluvial bar; 4 – forest; 5 – built up area; 6 – other land use (meadow/agriculture).
Figure 4. Land use change in the vicinity of Gostinu village: 1 – water; 2 – wetland; 3 – alluvial bar; 4 – forest; 5 – built up area; 6 – other land use (meadow/agriculture).
8Another important anthropic pressure was the construction of hydropower reservoir dams Iron Gates I and II, that became functional in 1972, and 1986, respectively. A possible reason could be: “Fifty years ago, Yugoslavia and Romania, joining forces, built a gigantic hydroelectric plant in The Iron Gates gorge, so that fish would not swim too far upstream. In the past, if we were to believe the chronicles, the king of the fishes would swim as far as Passau” (Șarîi, 2017).
9Since the embankments and construction of Iron Gates I, the Lower Danube floodplain is no longer affected by floods, with one exception. The Danube recorded a historic flood in April 2006, with a return interval of approximately 100 years, that was listed as the most important in terms of magnitude since the hydrological observations started along this reach. Dyke failures have been recorded due to hydrodynamic conditions, but also due to intentional breaches (Zaharia and Ioana-Toroimac, 2013). The village of Rast was submerged with important economic damages.
10Additionally, the development of the industry during the second part of the 20th century has triggered negative changes to the Danube water quality. Currently, the Danube water quality is on an overall upward trend (Mănoiu and Crăciun, 2021).
11Fishing has been a traditional activity at least since the 17th and 18th centuries, when Turkish names were introduced into Romanian, during a period when the Ottoman Empire had power in the region (bolozane = large boats; șăici = small river boats with sails and flat bottom; caice = narrow boats with sails, with two masts, with sharp stern and bow; ghimii = small ships according to Oișteanu, 2021 and Trotușanu, 1933). Fishing activities also change under political regimes. At the beginning of the 20th century, Grigore Antipa (1910) estimated a great potential of the Danube floodplain in terms of fishing. Fishing was presented with great enthusiasm. “It is a wonderful sedative in diseases of the nerves, of the chest even, of the spleen, a good remedy against despair and inclinations to suicide. Either on the expanse of a quiet pond, or in the swirling waters of rivers or in the foam of eddies in mountain streams, everywhere in clean and ozonated air, we feel permeated by the charm of the surrounding nature, forgetting everything and seeming to be reborn” according to the magazine România Pitorească (Frățilă, 1933). The magazine also had a column, “Fisherman’s calendar for June”, in which different types of baits are recommended, depending on the fish species (Păunescu, 1933).
12Between 1948 and 1990, during the communist regime, the state policy was to replace private ownership with communal farms, organized as large-scale production units (collective farms and state farms) in order to facilitate equal distribution of wealth (Urșanu et al., 2024). Fisheries were created and quotas and other technical details were established – “down to the mesh size of the fishing nets and the minimum allowed sizes of fish capture” (Șarîi, 2017). But a consequence of commercial traffic on the Danube was the population of the river with new species of fish, “something unusual until recent years for European countries: balloon blacktail, greater pipefish, round goby, stellate tadpole-goby (Benthophilus stellatus). Yet, it is said that wels catfish five meters long, weighing three hundred kilograms, and beluga sturgeon eight meters long, weighing one tone, lived in the Danube” (Șarîi, 2017). Overexploitation and illegal fishery were problematic in the Lower Danube and the delta, and data clearly reflects unsustainable fishery (Schletterer et al., 2018).
13After 1990, since the fall of the communist regime, collective agriculture and fisheries have generally been abandoned for the lack of financial profit. Some fish ponds located in the Danube floodplain and delta were the object of wetland restoration projects (Ioana-Toroimac and Zaharia, 2014).
14In this transformative context, fish communities suffered from habitat change. According to Schletterer et al. (2018), severe deficits are evident especially in disturbed population structure and in low abundance and biomass. Fisheries have caused direct biological changes, since for more than 100 years non-native species had been introduced for commercial fishery purposes, recreational fishery, or water management. The present fish communities of specific Danube sections differ considerably from historical accounts in terms of species composition and abundance. Nowadays, the Danube-specified captured fish are Pontic shad (approx. 11% of the total captured riverine fish in Romania) and wels catfish (less than 5% of the total cached riverine fish in Romania) according to MMSC and MADR (2014). Recently, in the last two decades, Romania has banned fishing and trading of wild sturgeon and has had a strict legislation for other species.
15Fish catches and apparent fish consumption in Romania have significantly improved in the last decade. Nonetheless, their values remain low when compared to other European Union Member States (Bucur, 2021). The fishing domain is not financially profitable in Romania despite the European Union support (Pila et al., 2023). A programme to encourage aquaculture and fishery has been in progress in Romania (2021-2027) (MADR, 2021).
16The story told by fishing communities come from investigations in three small villages located in the Lower Danube floodplain in Romania: Salcia (~2,700 inhabitants), Rast (~3,300 inhabitants), and Gostinu (~2,000 inhabitants). Historically and traditionally, these villages have been “fishing communities”. The collectivization of agriculture dramatically impacted the lives of peasants including their main professional activity and major part of the fishermen were forced to become farmers. After 1990 and the fall of the Iron Curtain, due to poverty, the communities have been affected by migration – both towards large cities or transnational (Sandu, 2005). Since Romania joined the European Union in 2007, the financial support and decoupled payments have had a positive and significant impact, generating employment opportunities, decreasing permanent emigration and diversifying the Romanian countryside in terms of professional activities (Galluzzo et al., 2021). The profession of river fishermen continues to exist, yet river fishermen form a sample of only 0.002% of the total population (according to estimations of MMSC and MADR, 2014). Despite changes and restrictions, these communities would be willing to go back to the state from the beginning of the 20th century (Dorondel et al., 2016) to wetland conditions in the Danube floodplain that naturally provides fish, reed, rush and wood.
17Interviews (more than 50) were conducted with the riparian population of Salcia, Rast and Gostinu and amateur fishermen, recalling that fishing areas have changed and that professional fishing is a thing of the past. The data were collected from elderly rural resident people who knew the communist regime, most of them being peasants all their life, but also from a few professional fishermen. Furthermore, some information came from participatory observation – in the fishing boat with the fishermen.
18Under natural conditions, locals recall that fish was the basic food of the riparian people of the Danube floodplain, pike being often eaten instead of bread, while today consumption habits have changed. Pike is considered as a luxury food, difficult to find due to the cost and the rarity of the specimens – “Brine with polenta was the base meal until the puddles dried up”, says one of the Rast villagers.
19During the communist period, fishing was carried out by fisheries. Newly built fisheries belonged to the CAP (Agricultural Production Cooperatives that used public land especially for the state benefit, with a certain ratio for the local workers). Here, fishermen used to net out only after another CAP had come with a certain request of at least 2 tons of fish to be caught at once – carp, pike, zander, wels catfish, bream (source: an old peasant from Rast).
20Lately, a strange change has occurred in the fish menu of the locals from Rast: those who went to work in Spain took over from there the habit of eating only marine fish and no longer consume riverine fish. Thus, sea bream has become one of the favourite fish of the young inhabitants of the Danube Valley, although they only find it at the store. Also, most of the fish-specific restaurants no longer rely on the daily catch of fishermen to ensure the supply of fresh fish, but instead supply fish (mostly frozen, as mentioned in their own menu) from the big wholesalers or from the Fish Exchange.
21There are still some villages where fish has remained one of the dishes that are part of local rituals. For instance, in Gostinu, the church keeps a custom that still takes place every year on Easter and on St. Nicholas day (the 6th of December in the Orthodox calendar), the patron saint of the church. The villagers collect money and prepare trays of fish, today the frozen fish (from the supermarket) being used. On the bottom of the tray, they put cane leaves, then fish is added with bay leaves, pepper, paprika, salt and lemon. In the old days, everyone made their own tray, but now they prepare it together. At the same time, some ways of preparing fish remained only in the memory of the locals. Decades ago, the fish used to be dried, put on some poles, covered with cheesecloth to keep flies away and caught with clothespins, then put in baskets with peach leaves between them. When the fish was ready to eat, “it was yellow like an orange”, says an elderly peasant from Gostinu.
22According to the stories of fishermen and other elderly members of the riparian communities, in the old days, when the fish roe was laid, in May, the fishing was done with a fence, keeping only the large fishes. There were even times when for some people the fish was used as currency, a barter they made for other goods. But this kind of intensive fishing stopped after the puddles were dried and professional fishermen began to be left without the subject of their work. After draining, different species of fish decreased or even disappeared, nowadays pike and shad being increasingly rare and the wels catfish being more often caught. Meanwhile, the fishing areas have changed and the fishermen themselves have disappeared – the number of those who have fishing as their main, remunerated occupation has drastically reduced.
23In the second half of the 20th century, a lot of women were fishing. They used to fish with the skirt – they were spinning in a circle and the fish stopped in the skirt: “I would pick up the clams with my toe and pull them out. We used to collect shells, and now we don’t have to see them anymore” (source: Anica Savu, born in 1920, Rast). It is true that here is revealed one of the frequent domestic cases in the families living in the Danube floodplain from the 20th century.
24The old generation of fishermen used to fish from wooden boats, but today they reject fiberglass boats: “The fibre boat is not bad, but you don’t have the courage to get into it, it is light, and it is possible to capsize with it” (source: a fisherman from Rast). Not only the boats, but also the fishing tools are different, as numerous names of the fishing tools and techniques are already extinct or unlikely to last much longer in contemporary Romania. The old, rudimentary scales put by fishermen are no longer used either, in addition to the standard place established for measuring the levels of the Danube waters – once, there were bars put up by the locals to measure the water level. The change in the spawning ground also involves the migration of fishermen towards the main course.
25A completely unusual way of fishing, and at the same time illegal, was used in the past by both Romanian and Bulgarian fishermen: electrofishing. And it may be used even today, because poaching will never disappear. Today, in the villages from the Danube Valley, the few who still sell fish go to the outside of the village, not in the centre, where the police could cause them trouble. Selling fish without a license and not in proper conditions is considered a crime.
26An interesting phenomenon that has developed rapidly in the last years, especially in the conditions of COVID-19 that predisposed to isolation, is the amateur fishing in the Danube waters in the areas where new deposits of sand formed young beaches or even new islands. Here, in the border areas, the fishermen must consult the Border Police regarding the specific places where they are allowed to fish. The Law of the regularization of borders dates from 1907. Since then, a lot of islands have appeared along the Danube, belonging neither to Romania, nor to Bulgaria, rather being neutral territory, where access is prohibited, fishing being allowed only around the island. In the latest years, the Romanian Border Police has had several cases of illegal immigrants pretending to be fishermen, but even they have avoided violating the land of the neutral islands, precisely because it would have been easier to raise suspicions.
27As mentioned previously, riparian people remember that fishing was easy in May during high flows under natural hydrological conditions.
28As a relic phenomenon, fish was brought by the waters during the flood of 2006, when the Danube floodplain was overflowed. When remembering the floods of 2006, people from Rast like to joke about it: “We were fishing in the yard” (source: a peasant from Rast). What is interesting is that those yards were on the land where the former lake that dried up in the middle of 20th century was. Of course, people cannot be judged when nature offers them something for granted – fish –, especially if the water has taken their entire household.
29In the opinion of the residents of Rast who have seen their household destroyed by the water, the flood was a result of a political decision for large upstream cities (Belgrade, Budapest) not to be flooded. This universal opinion is not recognized at the political, diplomatic level and it would be interesting to investigate the kernel of truth which created this local legend.
30Locals said that even today, during spring, the flow of the Danube goes crazy and the waters flood the settlements in the floodplain, only that disasters have no longer the scale of those before 1972, when The Iron Gates (Porțile de Fier) hydropower plant was put into operation. Ion, nicknamed Melcul (the Snail), who has been a fisherman for more than 40 years and who has experienced other times as well, says: “What we used to catch in an hour, years ago, we can’t catch nowadays even in three months! And there are fewer storks compared with the past years” (a fisherman from Salcia, Mehedinți county). So, the dam construction led to a considerable decrease in fishing. But the construction of the dam has its own good sides, quote: “After the Iron Gates dam was built, the water did not rise over the shore” (an elderly peasant from Rast).
31Our study presented a history of change in “fishing communities” from the Lower Danube floodplain in Romania. In quasi-natural conditions, at the beginning of the 20th century, fish was brought in floodplain lakes during floods and it was easily captured. “Fishing communities” traditionally lived from fish caught with simple instruments or even by hand in lakes with low waters depth of the floodplain. Subsequently, since the 1960s, fish have lost their habitat by draining and embanking the floodplain for agriculture. Consequently, “fishing communities” lost their usual meal. Fishing was done in collective fisheries and local communities received a part of the capture. Yet, through major land use change, “fishing communities” were forced to become mostly “agricultural communities”. Since the 1990s and the fall of the Iron Curtain, fisheries have generally been abandoned. Only a few members of the community declared themselves to be fishermen. Both professional and amateur fishermen use expensive techniques in the main river channel, with high depth and velocity, and respect more restrictive regulations. Nowadays, these communities have no longer the particularity of being “fish dependent”. The consumption of fish is not so relevant in terms of quantity, and the consumption of pelagic fish exceeds the consumption of fresh water fish (Bucur, 2021). Losing their livelihoods, these “fishing communities” also lost their own lifestyle. Top-down policy implemented by force is responsible for the evolution of the Danube, fish and food habits in southern Romania.
32Our paper recalls that people from these previously “fishing communities” have a good ecological knowledge on fish species, seasonality, and impact of engineering works. “Fishing communities” have holiday traditions related to fish. The stories told in interviews, in the second part of the paper, are generally confirmed by scientific proof in the first part of the paper. These stories link the past, present, and future. Therefore, recalling the past is important to preserve local identity of future generations.