Painting a picture of small scale fisheries in the Belgian seascape

Small-scale fisheries used to be a flourishing part of the Belgian commercial fleet. For centuries they provided coastal communities with an important source of food, employment and income opportunities. Today, they are virtually non-existent, when considering the definition adopted by the European Commission. Belgium has a group of ‘coastal fishers’ that conduct fishing activities with relatively small vessels (< 70 GT), making short trips(max 48h) usually in the North Sea. They mainly represent family businesses that target brown shrimp (Crangon crangon). Additionally, Belgium has small non-registered fishing vessels (< 12m). It seems that following the adoption of stricter regulations in the ‘80s these vessels became part of the recreational fleet. This led to a rather unique situation where circa 100 trawling vessels are also included in the recreational segment; however, about 88% consists of anglers. Before 2014, little was known on the Belgian recreational fleet. An elaborate monitoring scheme has been set up since and is a result of a collaboration between different stakeholders. Since Belgium has some capacity reserve, it would be possible to reintroduce a small-scale fisheries segment in addition to the existing fleet. However, current regulations hamper small recreational vessels involvement in the commercial fleet, although there is proven interest to do so. In addition, the Belgian institutional context is generally complex. This has led to important challenges with regards to the recently adopted Marine Spatial Plan. It may therefore by difficult to find a place for these fisheries in a sea of multiple other activities.