Building a future for sustainable small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea

The future of small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea will be the topic of discussion at a regional conference being held on 7-9 March 2016 in Algiers, Algeria.

Small-scale fisheries play a significant social, cultural and economic role in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. In the region, they constitute over 80 percent of the fishing fleet, employ at least 60 percent of workers directly engaged in fishing activity, and account for approximately 25 percent of the total landing value from capture fisheries.

The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) and FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, including its Mediterranean regional projects, are organizing the Regional Conference entitled “Building a future for sustainable small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea”.

This Conference is organized in partnership with the Government of Algeria, the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies – Mediterranean Agronomic institute of Bari (CIHEAM Bari), the Network of Marine Protected Area Managers in the Mediterranean (MedPAN), and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

According to Abdellah Srour, Executive Secretary of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, “This regional conference builds upon a successful Regional Symposium on Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea that we organized in Malta in November 2013.

That event was the first time we gathered together national administrations, non-governmental organizations, fisher communities, stakeholders and civil society around the same table to discuss how to best promote small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions.

The Malta event demonstrated to us the significant role small-scale fisheries can play in our region for alleviating poverty, ensuring food security and contributing to regional Blue Growth strategies.

Since then, the GFCM has strengthened its own focus on small-scale fisheries, including the launch of a comprehensive data collection tool that provides for the annual submission of data on small-scale fisheries.

We believe this regional conference is timely, and that regional stakeholders are eager to work together to promote and strengthen small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea.”

You can read the recently published proceedings of the First Regional Symposium on Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, now available online.

There is a full programme for the three-day event, including five panel discussions designed to present case studies related to the principle challenges for small-scale fisheries development in the region.

Small-scale fisheries play a significant social, cultural and economic role in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions


Participants will be encouraged to participate in discussion on each topic, and to present ideas from their country and regional experiences.

The discussion is intended to result in concrete priorities, possible solutions and practical recommendations to be shared with policy-makers.

The panel discussion topics include:
  • Supporting the sustainable development of small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea under the Blue Growth perspective
  • Strengthening the role of stakeholders in the context of management and co-management schemes
  • Improving the efficiency of Marine-protected areas as fisheries management tools and benefits from involving the small-scale fisheries sector
  • Enhancing small-scale fisheries value chains
  • Putting the principles if the Small-scale Fisheries Guidelines into practice: the case of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
Some of the countries present at the regional conference also participated in a December Near East and North Africa Regional Consultation Workshop in Muscat, Oman, also organized by GFCM and FAO.

At the workshop, implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries was discussed for the region. Many of the conclusions and recommendations of that workshop should also inform discussions in Algiers.

To learn more about the “Building a future for sustainable small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea” regional conference, take a look at the brochure, available inEnglish, French and Arabic.

Source of article FAO

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