The Executive Secretary of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM-FAO), Mr Abdellah Srour, and the Director of the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, Mr Antonio Troya, held a meeting on 30 October 2015 at the IUCN offices in Málaga to follow up the activities included in the Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations, signed on 19 May 2014.

After a quick review of their current ongoing activities, they discussed actions to be developed in 2016 and 2017 and agreed on the following main priorities:

• Cooperation for the development of local community activities (small scale fisheries and aquaculture) inside and around marine protected areas;
• Analysis of existing spatial management measures applied to fisheries restricted areas (regional and national), which are treated as conservation areas according to their objectives;
• Preparation and publication of reports on topics such as regional labels for marine conservation and management, and the status of non-indigenous or invasive species in the Mediterranean.

Other points for which information on ongoing activities was exchanged included the Alboran Sea online platform, involving Spain, Morocco and Algeria, which is currently under development, and a compendium of links to marine maps from different providers, which was presented as an experimental tool for decision makers and researchers. The GFCM indicated its interest in providing maps related to Mediterranean fisheries management.

For further information, please contact: Alain Jeudy

Photo: Alain Jeudy, Abdellah Srour and Antonio Troya - © IUCN-Med