Synopsis on Mediterranean gears legislation

The present document concerns a comparative study of fisheries laws and regulations covering the entire Mediterranean basin and focuses one main issue: the Mediterranean technical measures on fishing gears. During the last years, the technical aspects of legislation on fishing gears have become an important issue, mainly on the light of the new EC Reg. 1967/06 which have replaced the EC Reg. 1626/94. The new Regulation have changed many rules on fishing gears compared to the previous one, so it is important to define a common point of view on the new situation. The EC Reg. 1967/06 implements some technical parameters very important for the selectivity such as the mesh configuration (square mesh codend) and the twine diameter of towed net and gillnet. Nevertheless it is possible to raise a few considerations. The document underlines some possible problems, lacks or misunderstandings with new EC Reg. 1967/06. Furthermore it compares national legislations of EU and non-EU countries at the aim of finding possible alternative solutions; in fact comparing the National legislations could be useful to verify how the different countries have tackled similar problems. Thus the document intends to open a dialog between fishing gears technologist on the technical aspects of fishing gears to be considered important to manage the marine resources in different countries of the same basin. The goal of the document is to outline the technical issues we need to investigate in the future and the possible purposes we can suggest to fishery managers for a possible standardization of technical and management measures in Mediterranean sea.