Contact
Selected links
- German National Technical Program on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of aquatic Genetic Resources
- Factsheet Aquatic Genetic Ressources (German only)
- Expert Committee Aquatic Genetic Ressources (German only)
- EU Fisheries Policy and Marine Conservation
- Fisheries in Germany (German only)
- Federal Agency of Food and Agriculture Tasks in Connection with Fisheries
- German Fisheries Associations
- National Strategy for Agrobiodiversity
Aquatic Genetic Resources
Aquatic genetic resources include all genetic resources living in water. By that we understand fish, cyclostomes, mussels, decapods, marine mammals, aquatic plants and all other waterdwelling organisms that populate marine, coastal or inland waters, or are kept in aquaculture.
- Haul from the North Sea
© BLE
Sea-water and freshwater fish, but also crustaceans, mussels and other seafood belong to the most important sources of protein for human consumption worldwide. As the basis of the fishing industry, they play, at the same time, a major role in socioeconomic terms. Particularly in developing countries local fishing and the related branches of production guarantee the income of a large part of coastal communities.
German sea fisheries (coastal and deep-sea fisheries), which is embedded in the common fisheries policy of the EU, holds about 5 % (2009) of the catch quota of species subject to quota within the EU.
Freshwater fisheries uses both wild stocks of lakes, reservoirs and rivers, and stocks in aquaculture that are, more or less, affected by breeding. While professional lake and river fishing has sharply decreased in Germany during the last century, recreational fishing, with currently more than 1.6 million anglers, is becoming increasingly more important.
Today the vast majority of fishing yield of freshwater fisheries no longer comes from the lake and river fisheries but from aquaculture. Aquaculture is the controlled breeding of fish, molluscs, crustaceans and other aquatic organisms.