Romeo Mikičić has been fishing in the azure waters of the Adriatic Sea for more than 40 years.The father of two is passionate about the sea and comes from generations of fishers who lived on the island of Cres, one of more than a thousand islands in the Republic of Croatia that depend on fishing.

But in recent years, Romeo and other fishers in the Mediterranean have begun to fear for their future. Local stocks of fish and crustaceans, the source of their livelihoods, had been hard hit by overfishing and climate change.

“Fishing in Croatia is very important. You could fish very well in the 1990s and early 2000s, but then the fish became increasingly scarce,” says Romeo, who heads a national Croatian association representing 200 trawlers. “We had to import fish to increase supplies in the area, especially in the summer months during the tourist season.”

For decades, FAO has advocated for a new approach to manage the use of Mediterranean’s precious marine resources and preserve the fish stocks and other resources that are a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of people.

Read the beautiful FAO story on Mediterranean countries collaborating to safeguard marine resources