Belgian sea fisheries statistics: compiling historical data to recover a wider perspective

Belgian sea fisheries may be considered small or insignificant in the global context. Nevertheless, it does provide an interesting case study to look at trends in catch and landings statistics, and evolutions in the fleet size and capacity. With a tradition in beam trawl fishery (>90% of the actual fleet) and only three fishing ports where the main part of catches are landed, catch statistics are quite detailed and complete. The FAO statistics available for Belgian sea fisheries included per annum landings (tonnes) and values (EUR) per species, for larger fishing areas (e.g. ICES rectangles... Mehr ...