Small pleasure craft also comprise a portion of the Greek economy.
There is also tourism as Greek civilization is very old. There are ancient ruins unlike any in the world. Greek's antiquities measure in importance to Roman and Egyptian.
Commercial fishing has existed in Greece since the time of it's first settlements. But, in recent years the commercial fishing has been suffering due to over-harvesting.
By Joanna Kakissis
Parisi Tsakirios, 29, mends a net as he prepares for another fishing trip. "I can't imagine doing any other job, because I love the sea," he says. "But there are hardly any fish. I barely break even. I can't support my family."
..."In the Med, (click here) most stocks, actually the vast majority of stocks, are below safe biological limits," says Paraskevas Vasilakopoulos of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research in Athens. He's the lead author of a 2014 study of declining fish stocks in the Mediterranean Sea.
"It has to do with overexploitation," he says. "So we catch more fish than we should if we want to sustain viable populations. At the same time, in the Mediterranean, there's an additional problem of catching fish when they are too young, too small. So we catch too many fish before they get the chance to reproduce, to spawn at least once."
Sure, trawlers cause much of the damage, he says, because "they fish over the sea bottom and just take everything." That method of fishing has especially hurt demersal — bottom-dwelling — fish, like hake and red mullet in the Mediterranean.
"Those fish tend to be particularly in trouble, because they tend to grow slower and reproduce later than, say, anchovies and sardines," Vasilakopoulos says. "And they are also caught by trawlers and small-scale fishermen."...
