Marine fish farms mostly localized in the seas of around İzmir, Muğla and Aydın provinces created serious conflicts between public, tourism stakeholders and fish farmers due to environmental or visual pollutions created by aquaculture.

To solve the conflicts between stakeholders, Ministry of Environment and Urbanization of Turkey initiated new regulations on environmentally sustainable aquaculture in 2007 that have been implemented by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock of Turkey.

The regulations consist of the arrangements on the monitoring of the Tropical Index for Marine Systems (TRIX). According to the index, no fish far can be established in the closed bay areas where eutrophication risk is high and existing fish farms are not allowed to function. Also, marine fish cages were transported to the area 1.1 km away from the coast. The area must have minimum 30 m depth and 0.1 m/s current speed. These regulations covered all the entrepreneurs (existing and new) as above mentioned.

The most important success here was resulted from making regulations and obligation of farmers to these regulations. Fish farmer associations, although they were against the regulations at first, made efforts to convince their members. Moreover, availability of specific materials for open sea helped the farm transfers.

The inter-sectoral conflicts have not yet finished completely, but have been able to be diminished at a remarkable level. The pollutions of closed bays, particularly those with limited water current, were prevented. Due to the transfer of the sea cages to the open sea, both marine aquaculture and tourism activities can be operated in the same region. In other words, Turkish marine aquaculture presently gives minimum impacts on the coast thanks to the regulations.

Budget: Construction of durable cage systems for open seas costs 500-700 $/ton fish for 10 m diameter cages and 200-300 $/ton fish for 20 m diameter cages.

Partners:  General directorate of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock of Turkey, Ministry of Environment and Urbanization of Turkey, Aquaculture Farmers Association

Contact information:
General Directorate of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Livestock of Turkey
Address: Eskişehir Yolu 9. Km Lodumlu / ANKARA
Telephone: +90 312 258 3016 (10 lines)
Fax: +90 312 258 3060
E-mail : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.