The small-scale fishery of the east coast of Lanzarote (Canary Islands)

Abstract

The artisanal fishing in Lanzarote as in the resto of Canary Islands is multiespecific and multi-gear, but the evaluation of its impact on the fishery resources is hampered by the lack of historical series of capture and effort, thus because of the inaccuracy of the few existing data. With this study, we try to characterize the artisanal fishery that develops from Puerto del Carmen (east of Lanzarote) through the information provided from 2012, for it is first sale point. In analyzing the data available and from information obtained from surveys, it is possible to infer that catches of the different commercial species have undergone significant oscillations in recent years, due mainly to the action that fishing exerts on the populations, but also to the influence of biological and climatic factors. These oscillations observe more strikingly in the tuna catches, with declining tendencies, which has forced to exert greater pressure on the species bento-demersal, scarcer and more vulnerable to the overexploitation