Fishing for solutions. Environmental and operational assessment of selected Galician fisheries and their products

Abstract

Fishing is the only hunting activity which is still maintained on an industrial level to sustain worldwide food demand. Currently, worldwide fisheries are suffering a series of hazards linked to overexploitation and increasing human demand for protein, causing a wide range of environmental impacts on marine ecosystems, such as stock depletion or ecosystem disruption. Moreover, the fishing industry has grown to an extent where the environmental burdens associated with on board and on land operational activities, such as fuel consumption by vessels or wastewater generated by canning factories, are also becoming important environmental concerns. From a regional perspective, Galicia (NW Spain), the main fishing region in the European Union (EU) in terms of landed fish and economic turnover, does not escape these global threats. Additionally, Galicia supplies the rest of Spain and other EU countries with important amounts of fresh and processed seafood.