Abstract
Small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean represent a significant part of the fisheries industry and their substantial social, economic and place attachment related role has always been acknowledged in the region. Despite the fact that this usually family-based endeavor has a vast economic impact on coastal and island communities of the sea-basin, data and insights on the Mediterranean artisanal fisheries continue to be inadequately developed and poorly integrated in the local development strategies. Thus, the aim of this research is two-fold. Firstly, it presents some data and facts on the fisheries sector in the region and secondly it explores the options of their survival, prosperity and sustainability, approaching the combination of fisheries and tourism as a small-scale and soft “multi-use” in the marine space. Greece, with a huge potential in both the fisheries and the tourism sector, was used as focus area where a co-development process was designed aiming to identify advantages/potentials and challenges/disadvantages of the co-existence of artisanal fisheries and tourism, as perceived by a series of stakeholders including the co-management schemes (Fisheries Local Action Groups, FLAGs) in the country. Key conclusion is that sustainable livelihood from small-scale fisheries depends on the correlation between fisheries and other marine activities. Despite some limitations, this can boost sustainable local development and be a unique pattern of a “win-win” and soft multi-use marine spatial planning (MSP), with economic, environmental, social, cultural and governance related benefits for the coastal communities.
Highlights
In the last decades, the fisheries sector experiences serious constraints, such as the shrinkage of fish stocks due to overfishing, the shortages of competitiveness, specific European Union (EU) regulations for decreasing discards and unnecessary by-catches, etc
The necessity to link coastal development to the broader Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) and to the particular investments involving Maritime Spatial Planning are being taken into account [26]
Fishing tourism mostly relies on Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs), and their strategies take into account existing marine spatial planning (MSP) and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) initiatives, as the latter often have an important tourism component
Summary
The fisheries sector experiences serious constraints, such as the shrinkage of fish stocks due to overfishing, the shortages of competitiveness, specific European Union (EU) regulations for decreasing discards and unnecessary by-catches, etc. Small-scale fisheries are a multi-dimensional activity that ensures food from the sea is connected to land-sea interaction, and is (strongly) socially, culturally and symbolically rooted in the local communities. It has been observed [3] that small-scale fisheries beyond the SDG14b exclusively dedicated to this activity, which appeals for providing to small-scale fishers access to resources and markets, can obviously have a major weight in a series of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Mediterranean coastal areas host a series of human activities, which are essentially responsible for the deprivation of marine ecosystems and key constraints are the severe decline of the fish stocks and the many spots of pollution especially where human intensity is heavy and waste management is inappropriate. Other burdens are the heavy maritime traffic, the climate change related vulnerability, which means expected moves of species, alterations and imbalances between the fish populations and arrival of new invasive species
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