Political and economic fishery management in the Channel of Sicily

Abstract

Fishery activities in the Mediterranean Sea are characterized by a number of distinctive features which include relative extension of national to international waters, straddling and shared stocks, overall characteristics of fishing activities, availability of scientific information and the absence of a policy fisheries management in many coastal States. Therefore, the principal objective of this paper is to portray a framework on the politics of management of the fish resources in the Channel of Sicily, by examining both the CFP in the Mediterranean or the Italian–Tunisian relationship, and then to inspect the fishing effort of the Sicilians and Tunisian productive structures to carry out a comparative analysis. We also analysed the economic performance of the representative segments of the island fleet in the Channel of Sicily. The information gained from the economic results can be used by local institutions to draw up plans for intervention following European requirements.