Untitled - CNR

BI (Kg per km2)20092008200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996199519941993Fishery and Sea Resources7060MEDITSGRUND50403020100Figure 7: Biomass indices (BI as mean ± sd) of hake from trawl surveys in the Strait ofSicily.more in general stakeholders. Consumers,processing and retail sectors must requireguarantees that the fish they consume andsell originates from well-managed and sustainablefisheries. Fishermen must improvetheir economic resilience and adaptto changes in the environment and markets.Quality of fishery product, consumerinformation and the match between supplyand demand must be improved in order toincrease economic viability for fishermen.Furthermore, technological improvementmust not be oriented to increase the fishingpower but to raise the gear selectivity andreduce the impact on stocks and marineecosystems.Since fish move across national jurisdictions,stocks are often shared among countries.This is the case of shrimps in theStrait of Sicily, where the activity of onefleet has a direct effect on the fishing opportunitiesof others exploiting the samefish stocks and the same ecosystem. Sustainablefisheries of shared stock, such asPink and Red shrimps, must be based oninternational cooperation and on explicitrecognition of the absolute need to limitaccess to resources, under the umbrellaof General Fishery Commission for theMediterranean.Finally, another crucial aspect to achieveand maintain in the future a sustainablefisheries is the research. Fisheries scienceis a quite young discipline in Italy, but impressiveprogress have been reached afterthe implementation of the first scientificexperimental trawl surveys in the middle80’s and CNR was among the pioneers ofthis new path. It is worth remarking howless than 30 years ago, almost nothing wasknown about the biological features andstate of Mediterranean demersal resources1998