Today is World Fisheries Day, a date proclaimed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which has been celebrated every November 21, since 1998, with the aim of highlighting fishing activity for human life, its contribution to the protection and conservation of marine ecosystems and its promotion of the blue economy. In addition, since 2012, Aquaculture Day has been celebrated every November 30, which seeks to convey to society the importance of aquaculture and its commitment to sustainable development, R+D+I and the creation of wealth and well-being in rural areas and on the coasts. In this sense, the fisheries and aquaculture sectors are part of one of the fundamental pillars of the blue economy, which encompasses all activities related to the sea and has the ocean as the main engine of growth and innovation to achieve sustainable economic development. According to data from the report The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (FAO, 2024), these two sectors account for the livelihoods of some 600 million people, generating 61.8 million jobs in the primary sector alone during 2022. In global terms, FAO notes that global fisheries and aquaculture production in 2022 amounted to 223.2 million tonnes, 4.4% more than in 2020. In addition, aquaculture production has surpassed capture fisheries for the first time. The same document also includes the importance of fisheries as a source of food and its potential to address food insecurity and malnutrition. Global consumption of aquatic animal feed reached 162.5 million tonnes in 2021. This figure has increased at almost twice the rate of the world population since 1961, with annual global per capita consumption rising from 9.1 kg in 1961 to 20.7 kg in 2022. Of the total production, 89% was used for direct human consumption.

In line with all of the above, the fishing sector contributes to the generation of employment and wealth, economic growth and food supply. However, it is necessary to ensure the sustainability of fishing activities, avoiding practices such as overfishing, pollution or illegal fishing, which have an impact on the degradation of habitats and threaten the conservation of marine ecosystems. In this regard, Spain has the Sustainable Fisheries and Fisheries Research Law, approved in 2023.

This regulation on fisheries management includes improvements such as the inclusion of the ecosystem approach and climate change mitigation and adaptation as general principles. It also includes the minimization of accidental catches of protected and endangered species, as well as management plans that serve as a tool for recognizing the singularities of the different fisheries under the same management and biodiversity conservation objectives.

In this context, the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) is working to achieve a sustainable ocean and healthy marine ecosystems, strengthening collaboration with the fisheries and aquaculture sector. Thanks to the Pleamar Programme, funded by the European Maritime Fund for Fisheries and Aquaculture (FEMPA), we support 43 projects to boost innovation and sustainability in both sectors with a total of €14.5 million.

The development of this line of work aims to redouble the objective of supporting the fishing and aquaculture sector in its commitment to increasingly sustainable activities, the reduction of marine pollution and the promotion of the ecological transition to improve knowledge and the protection, conservation and restoration of the marine environment.

In addition, through projects such as LIFE INTEMARES and LIFE Ecorest , the active participation of the fishing sector in the different conservation actions of these European initiatives is encouraged. LIFE INTEMARES, coordinated by the Foundation, advances towards the effective management of the marine areas of the Natura 2000 Network in Spain, with science and the participation of all sectors, including fisheries, as basic tools for decision-making. For its part, the objective of LIFE Ecorest, which is coordinated by the ICM-CSIC and in which the Foundation participates as a partner, is to improve the conservation status of deep habitats and demonstrate the effectiveness of participatory management of the fisheries sector.