Regulations are in place to spatially manage offshore trawling efforts within the FMZ: trawling within the 25 nautical mile zone can, according to legislation, only take place at designated sites (detailed in Annex Va of EC 1967/2006 and as amended in 2012). These trawlable areas were chosen when Malta joined the EU in 2004, and were based on an FAO study on the location of areas suitable for trawling in Maltese waters carried out in 1976 / 1977 (Giudicelli, 1978). In addition trawling is only allowed within the FMZ by vessels not exceeding an overall length of 24 m, and the overall capacity of the trawlers allowed to fish in the zone can not exceed 4 800 kW. Moreover, the total fishing effort of all vessels is not allowed to exceed an overall engine power and tonnage of 83 000 kW and 4 035 GT respectively, and the fishing capacity of any single vessel with a license to operate at less than 200 m depth can not exceed 185 kW. This data was utilised by one of the co-financed EU LIFE+ Funding Programmes - LIFE BaĦAR for N2K project.
