Capture Fisheries and Aquaculture Exploitation in the Aegean Sea Archipelago

Abstract

The Aegean Sea is an insular archipelago in North Mediterranean Sea. It exhibits 60 inhabited islands, more than 1,400 small islands and more than 2,500 outcrops and rocks. Its total area is in excess of 215,000 km2. Fisheries and aquaculture are the second most important economic activities after tourism, from the point of view of contribution to the national GDP. However, as segments of the primary production, they are more important than tourism for job and income security of the numerous rural fishery-dependent communities in the region, as tourism activity is limited in certain areas and islands. The fishing fleet in the Aegean Sea amounts to 11,580 vessels approximately from which 95% belongs to the smallscale fishery segment and operates from over 100 ports, harbours and fishing refuges on the mainland and the islands. Fisheries production reached almost 69,000 t in 2018. Aquaculture in Greece is a fast developing industry with export orientation. The total national aquaculture production today amounts to 133,000 t of sea bass and sea bream for 2016, compared to 400 t in 1984. Aquaculture production in the Aegean Sea amounts to 83,000 t (63% of total) and fetching approximately 370 million €. From the economic point of view, the fisheries sector in the Aegean Sea faces many challenges. Even though demand for high-quality fishery products is stable and increasing, mainly due to tourism, the market structure is such that net income margins for capture fisheries are low between 8 and 12% at the producer level. Aquaculture suffers from very low prices close or seasonally below production cost levels due to the market competition of aquaculture production of the same species (whole, fresh or chilled sea bass and sea bream) by most Mediterranean States. Finally, fishery product processing industry faces drops in the demand of traditional products in the region (canned in oil, smoked) and low market prices for other types of products (fillets, frozen, etc.) which has forced many companies to diverse their production to vegetables and other local high-market value produce. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020