Once the beating heart of this Italian island community, fishermen on Lampedusa are under pressure on multiple fronts, from nets ripped by sunken migrant wrecks to a warming Mediterranean Sea.
The semi-arid outcrop, closer to North Africa than Italy, is a port of call for people attempting the perilous crossing to Europe, and their capsized or abandoned boats dot its emerald depths.
"The nets are continuously torn... there are days when you snag two, three (migrant) boats," 71-year-old fisherman Salvatore Mannino told AFP.
"We map the boats, but they move. They can snag one (fishing boat)" then later "another passes and gets caught too," he said, as he and a fellow fisherman mended a broken net while the sun beat down on the pier.
Mannino comes from generations of fishermen, but has told his children they had no future in the sector.
