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18th Apr 13

Managed by Chatham House

Financed by DEFRA

Italy

The fishing sector in Italy employs around 90,000 workers and its annual turnover is in the region of $5 billion, representing 0.4% of GDP. The marine fishery is multi-gear, multi-species, although the capacity of the fleet has fallen sharply since 1999 following the EU Multi-Annual Guidance Programme (MAGP) decommissioning scheme, which aimed to reduce fishing fleets to adjust fishing effort to the volume of available fishery resources.

The most important commercial species for bottom trawlers are hake, red mullets, Norway lobster, deep-water rose shrimp, spottail mantis shrimp, octopus, and squids. Artisanal vessels target a wide range of species, both demersal and pelagic, such as cuttlefish, octopus, scorpionfish, lobster, hake, sole, sparids and serradids, and swordfish. Purse seiners and pelagic trawlers target sardine and anchovy and the tuna fishery exploits red tuna and albacore. Bottom trawling accounts for around 40% of landings, followed by small-scale fishery operations (28%) and multipurpose vessels (16%).

Nearly all the catch from the Mediterranean is marketed fresh, chilled or canned. The major processed products are canned tuna and anchovies. Italy also imports large quantities of fish and fish products, particularly from other Mediterranean countries.

Italian fisheries policy is strongly dependent on the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which has focussed in recent years on limiting fishing capacity. The tuna fishery is regulated by ICCAT, which establishes annual maximum allowable catch quotas.

Italy is one of seven EU member states against which the European Commission has started infringement procedures for failing to send tuna catch reports data to the Commission, and for showing a lack of obligation and responsibility to the bluefin tuna recovery plan agreed by ICCAT in 2006.

documents (12)
news (140)
presentations (1)

documents

Adrift! Swordfish and Driftnets in the Mediterranean Sea
28/10/2009
This report was documents the use of illegal driftnets in the Mediterranean Sea by countries including Italy,Morocco, Turkey and Algeria. Driftnets ha ...
Author: Oceana

Letter from Oceana to the European Commission: Reference: Italy and illegal catch of marine biodiversity
09/07/2009
Letter from Oceana to European Commissioners, calling for an end to the illegal use of an Italian driftnet called ferrettara. The letter, which follow ...
Author: Oceana

Reports from Member States on Behaviours Which Seriously Infringed the Rules of the Common Fisheries Policy in 2006
04/11/2008
This paper from the European Commission documents infringements of the Common Fisheries Policy by Member States in 2006. 83% of the infringements were ...
Author: European Commission

Lifting the Lid on Italy's Bluefin Tuna Fishery
07/10/2008
This WWF-commissioned report documents what the authors refer to as Italys widespread disregard of fisheries management rules for Mediterranean bluefi ...
Author: WWF

Italian Driftnets: Illegal Fishing Continues
09/06/2008
Subtitled 'Results of the Oceana 2007 Campaign' this report has been produced in collaboration with Italian organisation Marevivo, on the co ...
Author: Oceana

Race for the Last Bluefin: Capacity of the Purse Seine Fleet Targeting Bluefin Tuna in the Mediterranean
12/03/2008
WWF states that the Atlantic bluefin tuna (BFT) fishery has been exposed to rampant overfishing inside the entire ICCAT Convention Zone, namely the At ...
Author: WWF

Pirate Booty: How ICCAT is Failing to Curb IUU Fishing
09/11/2007
This report exposes what the authors perceive as the weakness of current regulations governing tuna fisheries and the widespread occurrence of IUU fis ...
Author: Greenpeace

The Plunder of BlueFin Tuna in the Mediterranean & East Atlantic During 2006-2007
31/10/2007
This report follows on from a similar one covering the period 2003-04. The author ex ...

Illegal Driftnetting in the Mediterranean
11/07/2007
This report reveals that the tourist’s taste for swordfish is wiping out the species and damaging the marine environment. Swordfish is a quintes ...
Author: Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF)

The Mismanagement of the Bluefin Tuna Fishery in the Mediterranean
15/11/2006
It is Greenpeace‘s view that the the lack of controls in the Mediterranean region means that bluefin tuna are facing very serious conservation pr ...
Author: Greenpeace

Italian Driftnetters 2006: The Oceana Report
01/10/2006
During June and July 2006, Oceana travelled 1500 miles around the Tyrrhenian Sea, Sicily and the south of Sardinia to identify, document and report ve ...
Author: Oceana

Driftnets and Loopholes: The Continued Use of Driftnets by the Italian Fleet
01/01/2005
The RSPCA and Humane Society International (HSI) have campaigned for many years against the use of high seas driftnets in the Mediterranean Sea, culmi ...
Author: RSPCA and Humane Society International

news

presentations

Eliminating Illegal Driftnets from the Mediterranean
01/04/2008

Author:
Maria Jose Cornax, Oceana-Europe

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