The document contains an analysis of the status of the species of greatest commercial interest on the Catalan coast that aims to promote co-management measures intended to improve fisheries governance in Catalonia.
The fishing sector has expanded significantly in recent decades, achieving a historical record for fish production, trade and consumption in 2018. According to the latest FAO report on the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, catches increased by 14% and fish consumption by 122% between 1990 and 2018. As a consequence, a third of the world's fish stocks are overexploited nowadays.
Monitoring the state of fisheries is essential for several reasons: the fisheries sector employs tens of millions of people globally, and fish provides an important percentage of all the protein consumed each year by humans. Likewise, sustainable management of fisheries resources is key to the conservation of marine ecosystems.
Last July, the Institut Català de Recerca per a la Governança del Mar (ICATMAR), a joint organism of the Direcció General de Pesca i Afers Marítims (DGPAM) of the Government of Catalonia and the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM) of Barcelona, released the first report on the state of fisheries in Catalonia.
Scientific advice and fisheries governance
The document is the result of a long-term data acquisition program whose main objective is to improve knowledge about the population status of the greatest commercial interest species on the Catalan coast through joint actions between scientists and the fishing sector.
For its development, recently acquired fishing data as well as historical data on catches landed in the main Catalan fish markets, and positioning data of the fishing fleet have been analysed. Thanks to this, it has been possible to create a georeferenced data bank that according to the authors of the report will allow better analysis and evaluation of fish stocks.
"The study is part of a program of systematic and continuous data acquisition along the entire Catalan coast that will lead to the creation of historical series that are essential for a correct evaluation of marine resources", points out Joan B. Company, Head of the Department of Renewable Marine Resources at the ICM.
“During this first year, the species of greatest commercial interest have been studied in detail. Among them we can find hake, Norway lobster, red prawn, caramote prawn, spottail mantis squillid, horned and common octopus, “sonso”, sardine and anchovy”, adds Laura Recasens, co-head of the Department of Renewable Marine Resources at the ICM.
"From all of them, size frequencies, density, biomass and bathymetric distribution have been obtained thanks to 97 trawl fisheries on the continental shelf and on the slope, 37 purse seine samples, 21 “sonsera” samples and 44 common octopus samples", details in this sense Ana I. Colmenero, a researcher from the same Department.
Finally, a pilot test has been designed to study the socioeconomic impact of fishing activity and an approach to the study of recreational fishing that is expected to be carried out over the next few years has been now started.
This program seeks to provide a scientific basis for scientists, fishermen, the administration and the NGOs so that co-management measures can be promoted, allowing this way to improve the fisheries governance in Catalonia.