Fishing Tourism & Climate Change

Fishing tourism, apart from offering visitors an authentic experience of traditional fishing, provides an important additional source of income for professional fishers. At the same time, it helps reduce pressure on fish stocks and raises environmental awareness by bringing visitors closer to the sea and the issues it faces. As the number of professionals involved in fishing tourism is expected to increase, this project will document best practices so that new professionals can offer sustainable and environmentally friendly services. These practices will be recorded in a Best Practices Guide for Sustainable Fishing Tourism, which, together with the rest of the educational material that will be produced (layman’s reports, informative posters, etc.) will be permanently accessible via the project website.

The project also includes the promotion of Citizen Science among fishing tourism operators and their visitors. More specifically, it includes their active involvement in data collection  focusing on three main pillars: the recording and distribution of Invasive Alien Species, habitat loss (primarily seagrass meadows of Posidonia oceanica), and pollution distribution and abundance from plastics and microplastics.

By utilizing the iNaturalist and EVMAR platforms, fishers and visitors will provide valuable data to the scientific community!