Abstract
The strong social and environmental crisis at the Spanish Mediterranean Sea reveals the failure of usual fisheries policies that are mostly based on biological and economic criteria. New aproaches are focusing the fisheries system as a social and ecological complex system that, as well as its own activity, should involve the existing links between people and their enviroment, to set out colaborative models in order to integrate fishermen as central actors of a process of change that guarantees seas and shore sustainability.
In the case of Spain, new more sustainable forms of management are facing the existing lack of attention, at the academic and administrative fields, to the traditional ecological knowledge of fisheries on a small scale, and to the rol that fishermen and their institutions play regarding the management of sea resources. Considering this situation, it becomes necessary to study in depth and to appreciate not only the local traditional knowledge, but also possible models of co-management which take it into account.
This paper analyses, using a qualitative methodology, the specific characteristics of the traditional knowledge and practices of artisanal fishermen at the Spanish Mediterranean Sea, and contrast them with expert knowledge, particularly with marine biologists work on that field. The aim is to achieve a further integration between both forms of knowledge and experience, in order to produce more sustainable and efficient forms of collaborative management among fishermen, experts and administration
