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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Working Group on Red Coral (WGREDCORAL)  was held in FAO headquarters, Rome, Italy, in hybrid mode on 23–24 May 2023. It was attended by 52 participants from national administrations, fisher associations, and research institutes of Algeria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Monaco, Morocco, Spain, and Tunisia, as well as by participants from the Mediterranean Advisory Council (MEDAC), the European Commission Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) and the GFCM Secretariat. In order to provide advice to the Scientific Advisory Committee on Fisheries (SAC) on red coral in the Mediterranean , the main objectives of the WGREDCORAL  were to: i) review the state of red coral fisheries considering data from the Data Collection Reference Framework (DCRF) (up to 2021, fishing effort, annual catch, percentage of undersized colonies, etc.) as well as the results on recent stock assessments of red coral in selected geographical subareas (GSAs); ii) review technical measures implemented by contracting parties and cooperating non-contracting parties in response to Recommendation GFCM/43/2019/4 on a management plan for the sustainable exploitation of red coral in the Mediterranean Sea, including  national management plans addressing conservation measures, fleet management measures, control and enforcement measures and new potential measures introduced in response to Recommendation GFCM/45/2022/2 on a management plan for the sustainable exploitation of red coral in the Mediterranean Sea, amending Recommendation GFCM/43/2019/4; and iii) review the state of implementation of the GFCM research programme (2020–2023) and identify preliminary results relevant to the management of the fishery. Despite the fragmented information made available through the DCRF (e.g. average diameter of colonies and percentage of undersized colonies) and on the basis of the results of the validated red coral stock assessments available for three GSAs and the precautionary principle, the working group convened that populations of red coral in the Mediterranean could be in a situation of overexploitation with some alarming signals (decrease in the average size of colonies) in the main producer, where the mean diameter remained only at 1 mm above the minimum conservation reference size and the percentage in weight of undersized colonies at the threshold of 10 percent, while in one specific area it was found above the reference to trigger (25 percent) the closure of the fishery. Regarding management, conservation, monitoring, control and surveillance, and traceability measures established to implement Recommendation GFCM/43/2019/4, all countries had adopted a national management plan for the red coral fishery. An overview of the preliminary results of the research programme on red coral provided a basis for the discussion and formulation of advice.