Turkey’s marine capture fisheries landings collapsed down to its 36 year overall lowest value of 266 ktons in 2014. Compared to 36 years ago, the same level of capture production obtained by today’s technologically well-equipped more than twofold bigger fishing fleet has been quite thought-provoking for all of us.

Turkish marine ecosystems have experienced important changes due to the overfishing, pollution, degradation of habitats and climate change. All these changes have also affected the socio-economic services provided by these ecosystems. Todays, more fisher in the numerically and technologically more developed vessels are catching less fish using more fuel oil and gaining less money.

DekoYon Project investigates the time-evolution of the health of the marine ecosystems and socio-economic dynamics of the Turkish Seas and develops Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management policies that will ensure sustainable ecological and socio-economic utilization of the fisheries resources. Using Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) ecosystem modelling tool that has been adapted to Turkey’s Seas, optimum fisheries management strategies are being developed by simulating the potential changes in the next 20 years under different fishing and environmental scenarios.

The project outputs will also provide a road map for achieving Good Environmental Status (as defined in EU Marine Strategy Framework Directives) in the Turkey’s EEZs. The deliverables and the products of DekoYon Project will be disseminated through meetings, seminars, published books and articles and the World Wide Web so as to provide support for the increase of the awareness level of the public, fishermen and policy makers and help other researchers accelerating their research in this field by providing a knowledgebase and an example set of methodologies.