On World Tourism Day (27 September), pescatourism tours started in Turkey’s Gökova Bay as part of FAO’s Blue Hope Initiative in the Mediterranean Sea. This is a major step in adapting pescatourism in the country, which aims to reduce the fishing effort on stocks and create new income opportunity for the local communities by offering revenue from other uses of their vessel.

“Pressure on stocks has drastically increased in the Mediterranean, and also in Turkey, and there is an urgent need to create alternative livelihood opportunities to keep alive the traditional, small-scale fisheries and also attract the young generation to the sector,” said Disa Vurdem, FAO fisheries specialist and coordinator of the project. “The pilot tours will operate until the end of November and we do hope it will further trigger the process of full legalization of this activity in Turkey.”

In Turkey, the interest for adopting pescatourism – traditional fishing tourism – emerged in 2019 and soon received full support from the project’s stakeholders. The idea was to pilot traditional fishing tours in Gökova Bay, the project area, and understand the interest on such alternative livelihood diversification from both fishers and potential tourists.