Recreational fisheries are defined as “a non-commercial fishing activity exploiting marine living resources for recreation, tourism or sport”. They play an integral part in Mediterranean and Black Sea coastal life and they represent a significant economic component of coastal tourism, one of the main maritime sectors in terms of gross value added and employment.

However, proper consideration of recreational fisheries in policy-making has, to date, been held back by a lack of regular and reliable catch, effort and socio-economic data. Given that recreational fisheries represent an additional component of fishing mortality, there is a need to improve knowledge on the sector and include its catches in stock assessments in order to support the sustainable management of fish stocks.