authorities. The pioneering laws (ordinances) of the city of Malaga between the
years 1489 and 1611 included fishing regulations focussed on protecting the immature fish, regulating on the lengths of the nets, the size of the meshes and the
establishment of spatio-temporal closures. These ancient documents cite between
24 and 33 fish species of great commercial interest. Unfortunately, nowadays, the
reliable identification of real species with regard to the older common names appears
to be a difficult or impossible task to do, also complicated by the high specific
richness of the Alboran Sea.
During the eighteenth century, fishing legislation was the responsibility of the
navy. Since early times, the fishermen from Malaga were registered in guilds to
defend their rights and until the end of the nineteenth century actively fought against
the use of seabed trawls. The fishermen’s arguments can be described as ecologists,
since their detractors tried to prohibit the use of those nets as they were considered
destructive for small or immature fish and for the soft seabed ecosystems. By
avoiding this local industrial fishing, the greatest fishing effort in Andalusia
(in number of boats and fishermen) was centralized in the province of Malaga,
owing to the fact that artisanal fishing gear needed more boats and seamen.
Since the mid-nineteenth century, regulations have been improved with the
participation of the local fishermen themselves. In the Local Fishing Commission
in Malaga, fishermen representing each category of fishing met the commander of
the navy and a naturalist advisor periodically. At the end of the century, that
naturalist became the natural history professor at a secondary school in the city.
He argued and defended the necessary protection of the coastal seabed characterized
by the presence of laminarian and coralline algae. Such assumptions are valid in the
twenty-first century, because it has been confirmed that both floor types constitute
valuable habitats that are necessary to preserve the biodiversity in benthic communities. Likewise, much of the “modern” international fishing management is based
on those “ancient” conservationist ideas implemented since the end of the fifteenth
century on the coast of Malaga.
Acknowledgements I appreciate the collaboration of professors Juan J. Bravo Caro and Pilar
Ybáñez Worboys, from the University of Malaga (Department of Modern and Contemporary
History), who have helped me to improve the text. At the University of Granada, professor Antonio
Martínez González provided me with an interesting bibliography on the ancient vernacular fish
names in Malaga and Andalusia.
References
Abad R (1995-1996) Las almadrabas de Almería. Bol Inst Estudios Almerienses 14:77–89
Agostini VN, Bakun A (2002) ‘Ocean triads’ in the Mediterranean Sea: physical mechanisms
potentially structuring reproductive habitat suitability (with example application to European
anchovy, Engraulis encrasicolus). Fish Oceanogr 11(3):129–142
Aguilar Á (2013) Chimán: la pesca ballenera moderna en la Península Ibérica. Ediciones de la
Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona
23 A Historical Approach to Living Resources on the Spanish Coasts from the. . .
791
years 1489 and 1611 included fishing regulations focussed on protecting the immature fish, regulating on the lengths of the nets, the size of the meshes and the
establishment of spatio-temporal closures. These ancient documents cite between
24 and 33 fish species of great commercial interest. Unfortunately, nowadays, the
reliable identification of real species with regard to the older common names appears
to be a difficult or impossible task to do, also complicated by the high specific
richness of the Alboran Sea.
During the eighteenth century, fishing legislation was the responsibility of the
navy. Since early times, the fishermen from Malaga were registered in guilds to
defend their rights and until the end of the nineteenth century actively fought against
the use of seabed trawls. The fishermen’s arguments can be described as ecologists,
since their detractors tried to prohibit the use of those nets as they were considered
destructive for small or immature fish and for the soft seabed ecosystems. By
avoiding this local industrial fishing, the greatest fishing effort in Andalusia
(in number of boats and fishermen) was centralized in the province of Malaga,
owing to the fact that artisanal fishing gear needed more boats and seamen.
Since the mid-nineteenth century, regulations have been improved with the
participation of the local fishermen themselves. In the Local Fishing Commission
in Malaga, fishermen representing each category of fishing met the commander of
the navy and a naturalist advisor periodically. At the end of the century, that
naturalist became the natural history professor at a secondary school in the city.
He argued and defended the necessary protection of the coastal seabed characterized
by the presence of laminarian and coralline algae. Such assumptions are valid in the
twenty-first century, because it has been confirmed that both floor types constitute
valuable habitats that are necessary to preserve the biodiversity in benthic communities. Likewise, much of the “modern” international fishing management is based
on those “ancient” conservationist ideas implemented since the end of the fifteenth
century on the coast of Malaga.
Acknowledgements I appreciate the collaboration of professors Juan J. Bravo Caro and Pilar
Ybáñez Worboys, from the University of Malaga (Department of Modern and Contemporary
History), who have helped me to improve the text. At the University of Granada, professor Antonio
Martínez González provided me with an interesting bibliography on the ancient vernacular fish
names in Malaga and Andalusia.
References
Abad R (1995-1996) Las almadrabas de Almería. Bol Inst Estudios Almerienses 14:77–89
Agostini VN, Bakun A (2002) ‘Ocean triads’ in the Mediterranean Sea: physical mechanisms
potentially structuring reproductive habitat suitability (with example application to European
anchovy, Engraulis encrasicolus). Fish Oceanogr 11(3):129–142
Aguilar Á (2013) Chimán: la pesca ballenera moderna en la Península Ibérica. Ediciones de la
Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona
23 A Historical Approach to Living Resources on the Spanish Coasts from the. . .
791