A large group of nations whose fishing fleets regularly ply the waters of the Mediterranean have agreed upon a series of new measures aimed at conserving the region's fish stocks, FAO said on January 17th, 2007...

The measures were adopted during the annual meeting of FAO's General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), held by mid-January in Rome and attended by 19 countries plus the European Community.
One of the meeting's main outcomes was an agreement on the use of new, more selective types of netting in bottom trawls. Changes to the shape of the mesh holes in the "cod end" section of the trawls will permit small juvenile fish that have not yet reproduced to escape capture and return to the wild to breed.
Among the species that will benefit are red mullet and hake, popular with consumers and of economic importance but categorized as either fully- or overexploited by FAO.

The commission also agreed on a common set of benchmarks for measuring the capacity of fishing fleets in the region and assessing their impacts on shared fish stocks, the first time such a unified system has existed in the Mediterranean.

"This is a milestone - we will now have a tool for getting a complete picture of what kind of fishing is going on in the entire area, and to finally be able to address the management of multispecies fisheries" said GFCM Secretary Alain Bonzon. "What's more, these new definitions of fishing effort will enable us to study and make recommendations specific to sub-sectors of the various fishing fleets, which will improve management overall."