Crayfish conservation with Professional Fishermen of Lake Polifytos (Greece)

Lake Polifytos, Greece

The community/organization and local perspectives on conservation and stewardship

Western Macedonia accounts for 60% of Greece’s total freshwater reservoirs. This makes the area a rich and diverse source of assets for the fishing industry. However, the integration and cultivation of this resource asset into the local economy has been under-exploited. Despite earlier efforts to develop small-scale fishing activities in the local areas, a lack of continued investment and socio-political factors have impeded its development. The area is landlocked and rather remote. Therefore, it has the typical characteristics of rural regions, such as high unemployment rates, and the migration of the population to urban centers amongst other factors.

Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs) are partnerships between fisheries actors and other local private and public stakeholders. Together, they design and implement a local development strategy to address their area’s needs be they economic, social and/or environmental. The FLAG responds to these issues by appropriately developing and cultivating the aquaculture and fishing industry in Western Macedonia. The FLAG aims to promote fisheries and aquaculture in a discrete area surrounding the artificial lakes of Polifytos and Ilarionas, located in the mountainous inlands of the counties of Kozani and Grevena. These lakes host several freshwater species (crayfish, catfish and carp among others), which can contribute to stimulating local economic activity and entrepreneurship.

The FLAG aims also to support environmental upgrades and the ecological sustainability of the area by promoting alternative tourism such as ecotourism. Responsible tourism to the natural areas surrounding the artificial lakes was found to be a way to encourage ongoing conservation of the environment and in improving the well-being of local people.

Stewardship experience: Educational seminar on sustainable fisheries & crayfish conservation

The issue or problem being addressed

The Polifytos Lake, located in the Northwest of Greece, has attracted increased attention from the Fisheries Industry due to the current spawning of two crayfish species: Astacus astacus and Astacus leptodactylus.

Several populations of European freshwater crayfish species are at risk or have already became endangered or extinct. This is mostly due to anthropogenic activities, diseases such as the white spot disease and the crayfish plague, competition with invasive non-indigenous species, translocations, declines in the genetic diversity, eutrophication, overexploitation, pollution, habitat destruction and water abstraction for irrigation. In the case of the Astacus spp., population and distributional declines have been widely reported with the species now being considered endangered. However, small isolated wild populations remain and are confined to headwaters and lentic environments that remain pristine. The preference of the species to thrive in high quality waters gives it high meat content and quality. Therefore, despite the danger of extinction, the Astacus spp. is still of commercial interest. This limited availability of the species has not only increased the economic value of this luxury food but has also increased environmental concerns and conservation of the species.

The conservation/stewardship activities

The professional fishermen group in collaboration with two European universities created a seminar based on the sustainable fishing and conservation of those two crustacean species. As a result of these efforts, fishing for crayfish in Lake Polifytos has been banned for two years.

This decision was initially informed by the fishermen group, who without any hesitation passed their concern and opinions for the need to protect populations of crayfish to the local authorities. The local authorities then applied laws on the protection and conservation of the species. Apart from the two year fishing ban, the government funded scientific groups in order to study the crayfish and its environment. These studies helped to improve management capacity and support evidence based decision-making locally, so that the authorities would have managerial advocates on fishing administration policies.

The benefits/impacts including sustainability/environmental effects

The local fishermen are aware now why crayfish have such a big demand and how sensitive it is to water quality changes and overharvesting. They know that if they won’t protect and manage it correctly they will have to face the consequences of its extinction.

The success and significance of the activities

It was intended that after the seminar people will understand how important is to maintain healthy crayfish population in the lake. It has become clear that with increased local awareness of this issue, fishers understand and largely support the closure period and have an interest in ensuring crayfish populations are managed sustainably.

Some lessons learned or words of wisdom

The right leadership in accordance with knowledge is a strong recipe to make things possible. It was really nice that practical local knowledge from the fishing activity was valued along with the scientific knowledge of the experts in that field.

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Fishery Facts

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