Biodiversity Conservation, Management and Sustainability for Fisheries in Protected Areas

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability is a hot topic in most fishery discussions around the world today. Scientists are determining how many fish can be caught safely without compromising the health of future stocks. To do this, they collect data on the size of the stock, when and where the species spawns and how many juvenile fish are likely to survive to adulthood. They also assess environmental factors that may affect the stock, such as predation by other species, climate change, allochthonous species, fish parasites, etc.

Various management measures can also be taken to protect stocks from overfishing, such as banning fishing during the spawning season and setting size limits to protect juvenile fish.

An important aspect of sustainable fishing is the adoption of precautionary measures, known as harvest control rules, which prescribe a reduction in catches when the population of a stock is declining. This is particularly important when stocks are shared by several countries and a joint effort is required to prevent overfishing.

The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 provides an overview of the legal framework. The main objectives of this strategy are to create a larger, coherent EU-wide network of protected areas (30% legal protection, 10% strict protection) and to develop an EU nature recovery plan. This should include a list of the species and habitats in need of protection and a description of the measures to be taken (the types of measures, how many, and when and why they believe these will be sufficient to achieve non-deterioration by 2030).

Around the world, the closure of oceans, seas and rivers to certain activities or for certain periods of time is a tool that is often used for conservation and fishery management. These areas are commonly referred to as protected areas. In fishery management, protected areas are generally considered to be temporally and geographically defined areas that offer greater protection to natural resources than the rest of an area defined in the context of fishery management.

Prof. Dr. Vera P. Nikolić
Dr. Vesna Djikanović
Guest Editors

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• fisheries
• management
• protected area
• threats
• challenges
• sustainability