Inventory of Artisanal Fishery Communities in the ... - Fao - Copemed

3. The new approach
3.1 The programme of work
The outcome of the meeting in Malta was indeed very useful to re-arrange the approach to
be followed and, at the same time, to reconcile the activities. The aim of this new task is to
conduct a preliminary inventory survey (reconnaissance survey) of all the artisanal fishery
communities in the Mediterranean area.
This work, being carried out simultaneously in all countries covered by the Project, should enable
us to design an appropriate multi-purpose survey in a second phase. This is because the main
objective of the activities remains unchanged, i.e., to "launch some studies aiming at defining
management strategies for artisanal fisheries to benefit the fishermen’s communities and the
administrations, and not just be the statistical component”.
It was clear that the proposed programme was, in a way, ambitious, but it was stressed that if
instead of an activity (one occasion only) a, properly formulated programme, with stepwise tasks,
was set up it would have a better possibility of being completed or continued in case constraints,
delays or different levels of participation occurred. It was also believed that if this programme was
mainly directed to the countries, which will finally receive the tool, a higher probability of
national follow up could be expected.
Finally, it was believed and agreed that this exercise would be followed by sectoral surveys (case
studies) carried out with the assistance of domain experts to make the results “fruitful”.
A new work plan was formulated based on the following steps:
a) Identification and definition of artisanal fisheries
(Undertake a complete review of all the available documentation on artisanal fishery in the
Mediterranean)
b) Location of artisanal fishery communities and their activity in space and time
(Define, make an inventory of and localise all the artisanal fishery communities in the region
according to a given definition, and memorise the data according to a structure to be used for
many other tasks).
c) Assessment of the main non-fishery issues interacting with artisanal fisheries by type, zones
typologies, etc
Assessment and description of activities and situations that directly or indirectly interact with
artisanal fishery (holiday stations and infrastructures, marine parks, reserves, platforms, etc.)
d) Inventory of the main fishery components associated with artisanal fisheries
Assessment of the main fishery components interacting with artisanal fisheries (fleet
composition, mariculture, catch, effort, fishermen, etc. – collecting information only, not
through exhaustive surveys)
e) Definition and classification into regional typologies (to enable regional comparison and
analysis)
It is expected that many of the characteristics included in the inventory will need to be
normalised to certain standards. This is especially true for fishing seasons (time), target
species and associated species, fishing zone, etc., where the enumerators will record
information that may not be immediately additive, or may not possible be classifiable. An
example is the seasonal pattern of a certain artisanal metiér that is performed in many cases
from January to June, compared to another reported to be performed from February to June, or
another from February to May, and so on. After standardisation and subsequent normalisation
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