Fishing management and sustainable fishing methods in Turkey and Europe
Osman Samsun
Sinop University, Turkey
: J Mar Biol Oceanogr
Abstract
The growing human population in the world needs animal protein is important. Aquaculture is a very important resource for meeting this need. However, it is imperative that seafood resources be operated sustainably. Many countries are aware of this fact and take various measures. The fishery management, which is changing according to the countries, should be basically based on scientific principles and researches. In practice, the priority needs of countries and their socio-political preferences sometimes adversely affect sustainable fisheries management. The importance, as well as the necessity, of fisheries management has been widely acknowledged and well documented over the past decades. The obligation to ensure sustainable exploitation of renewable fisheries resources has been recognized by many coastal states and considerable effects made. In the last decade some important symptoms, like conflicts between interested users, decreasing CPUE of target species, increasing fishing effort, decreasing mean catch size of target species etc., have been noticed in Turkish marine capture fisheries which call for a reappraisal of fisheries management. Fishery in Turkey are characterized as multispecies, multi gears and targeted both demersal and pelagic fish stocks as in most of other Mediterranean countries. Turkey, especially anchovy, horse mackerel, bonito used for catching fish such as purse seiners fishing capacity has reached quite large. Length of these boats, motor power, and very sophisticated fish finding equipment, etc., is more advanced than all the other countries in the Black Sea. Large- scale fishery is characterized by trawls and purse seines which produce about 90 percent of the total catch. The sciences on fisheries, especially fisheries economics and management have been well developed in countries like Norway, Iceland, Canada, UK, Japan, Spain where marine culture is also rich, thus fisheries have long been preserved as a tradition. The objectives of fisheries management policy in Turkey and Europa are set by State Planning Organization (SPO). Managing fishery resources in a sustainable way is the main objective of the fisheries policy. Therefore region-based preliminary fisheries plans have been designed. The objectives set out in these plans include rebuilding of depleted stocks, long-term resource management, introduction of fishing rights and sustainability of fishing opportunities for fishermen. Principal impediments to more effective fishing management are as follow: Lack of historical and actual data, lack of economic and biologic monitoring of fisheries, lack of coordination amongst stakeholders, lack of legislation for establishing right based fisheries management, lack of legislation for establishing fisheries co-management and stakeholder participation into management process at the local level, difficulties of adoption of ecosystem based fisheries management. This presentation describes the current situation and what to do about the future comes to sustainable fishing in European countries and Turkey. It is desired that the subject be discussed in the scientific world and awareness creation.
Biography
Osman Samsun is professor at Faculty of Fisheries and Aquatic Science, Sinop University. He is working as head of Department of Fishing Gear and Process Technology. He obtained his Ph. D. degree in 1990 from Graduate School of Natural Sciences, Ondokuz May University. His research interest includes conservation biology, fisheries science, and population dynamics and fisheries sustainability. osamsun@yahoo.com
