“For too long, the considerable importance and impacts of recreational fisheries have been ignored,” states a team of fisheries scientists, economists, sociologists and ecologists in an opinion paper published earlier this month. The paper includes a five steps policy reform to address the shortcomings.

Recreational fisheries: Very important but ignored 

According to the scientists globally there are +220 million recreational fishers. The scientists urge policymakers and managers worldwide to pay more attention to “the often-ignored recreational fisheries sector,” and stress that, “Recreational fisheries deserve to be considered on equal footing with commercial fisheries, particularly in mixed coastal fisheries”.

The EU’s Common Fisheries Policy is given as an example of a policy that ignores the recreational fisheries sector, which leads to, “inefficient allocations, loss of human welfare, and heightened conflict.”

Read more here:
https://www.eaa-europe.org/news/13248/recreational-fisheries-ignored-for-too-long-scientists-say.html