Earlier this year, the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) established and implemented the 11th fisheries restricted area (FRA) in the Mediterranean Sea, banning bottom trawling in a chunk of the Otranto Channel between Italy and Albania for the foreseeable future.
Back in 2005, the GFCM created the first deep-sea FRA, prohibiting bottom trawling and dredging below 1,000 meters in Mediterranean waters as a precautionary measure to protect largely unexplored deep-sea ecosystems. Since then, 10 additional FRAs have been designated to regulate and restrict fishing in essential fish habitats, such as spawning and nursery grounds, as well as vulnerable benthic habitats.
The most recent FRA was designated in the Otranto Channel in the South Adriatic Sea to protect important commercial crustacean species and vulnerable marine ecosystems featuring the deep-sea soft coral Isidella elongata.
While marine protected areas (MPAs) have been a more common tool for protecting marine areas in Europe, FRAs and other spatial management measures focus more on strict conservation of marine resources.
“In the GFCM context, FRAs are geographically defined areas in which all or certain fishing activities are temporarily or permanently banned or restricted in order to improve the exploitation and conservation of harvested living aquatic resources or the protection of marine ecosystems,” GFCM Senior Fishery Officer Elisabetta Betulla Morello said.
According to Morello, FRAs are designed with two main objectives: to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems and sensitive habitats from the potential adverse impacts of fishing and/or to enhance productivity of marine living resources through protection of essential habitats.
As noted by Leonardo Tunesi, the research director at the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), MPAs are designed to conserve marine biodiversity like an FRA but also to maintain ecosystem productivity and support the economic and social well-being of local communities by sustainably managing the human activities allowed in such areas.
“Networks of MPAs or marine reserves operate together at various scales and cover a range of protection levels, which work toward objectives that individual MPAs cannot achieve,” Tunesi said.
Besides the goals of each measure, the process of implementing FRAs and MPAs also differs.
MPAs follow distinct procedures depending on whether they are national or European.
Typically, in Italy, the process includes identifying a site, conducting environmental and socioeconomic studies, defining a first proposal of perimeter and zoning, submitting these for public consultation, further input from stakeholders, and ultimately establishing the MPA through national law.
In contrast, FRAs in the Mediterranean get proposed to the GFCM by any stakeholder or entity, the proposal is compiled into an ad hoc form, it is presented to and reviewed by the relevant GFCM technical bodies similarly accompanied by stakeholder consultations at the national level, and then a formal presentation to the GFCM for consideration.
This, according to Morello, typically allows for more streamlined implementation than an MPA.
“This process is considered simple and straightforward by many experts, who appreciate the possibility given by GFCM meetings to communicate with national administrations,” Morello said. “In the case of the Otranto Channel, an ad hoc socioeconomic survey was rolled out in Albania and Italy to inform managers about the potential socioeconomic effects of the establishment of an FRA. In general, in the long term, FRAs are paying off fishers as stocks rebuild and yields increase.”
One example of where an FRA has begun to pay off for fishers in the Mediterranean is the Jabuka/Pomo Pit in the Adriatic Sea.
After years of declining demersal stock biomass, a temporary FRA was put into place in 2017 to protect the Jabuka/Pomo Pit and was made permanent in 2021. According to Morello, this area is the most important nursery area in the Northern and Central Adriatic Sea.
This FRA, which is implemented in conjunction with a multiannual management plan, is proving to be highly effective, as the biomass of the two main commercial species in the area – European hake and Norway lobster – have improved.
“These positive changes are also reflected in the fishing industry, including small-scale fleets, which are observing increased catches in the surrounding area, not only in quantity but also in catching larger fish, resulting in increased profits. Protecting a small fraction of the sea has the potential to trigger knock-on effects in the surrounding area when this measure is implemented in combination with others. It's a win-win situation: Commercial stocks and marine biodiversity recover, and fishers benefit from increasingly abundant and valuable catches,” Morello said.
