Hellenic Eel Management Plan, 2009.

This Hellenic Eel Management Plan, in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No. 1100/2007, establishes a framework for the protection and sustainable use of the stock of eel of the species Anguilla anguilla in Community waters, in coastal lagoons, in estuaries, and in rivers and communicating inland waters. The achievement of the European eel recovery is based on the improvement of both the survival probability and the reproductive migration of the adult individuals. The complex life cycle of the species and the disperse character of the population inevitably increase the diversity of the targets, measures and proposed actions over the European countries. This diversity is due to the heterogeneity characterizing the eel ecosystems, the related anthropogenic actions, the amount of knowledge and several socio-economic aspects. In any case, the urgency of eel recovery needs the realistic definition of priorities and actions maximizing the expected results. Eel Fishing activities targeting individuals less than 30 cm are allowed with a specific authorization only for restocking purposes (RD/142 art. 1/1971).
The Greek Eel Management Plan will include a time period for detailed older data collection and a parallel effort to analyse the nature of the available data, mainly from the lagoon fisheries, in order to understand both the lagoon differences and the observed trends compared to the anthropogenic changes made in the EMU areas. The absence of decreasing trends in the landings of the EMU-02 should be investigated carefully. These remarks make the estimation of the escapement levels very difficult and show clearly that the improvement of knowledge in parallel with direct measures for the decrease of the mortality and increase of the sea escapement are necessary. The main targets of the EMP are: Reduce direct fishing mortality; Establish an efficient recording system; Reduce natural mortality; Improve the efficiency of eel migrations. To achieve these targets both short and medium to long term measures and actions should be designed and carried out.