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Abstract
Artisanal fishery in the lagoon of Venice is a multi-target activity with an old tradition. It was the only fishing activity since a new one with most features of an industrial fishery flourished following the introduction of the Manila clam in 1983. To compare the two fishing activities, a set of ecosystem indicators (landings, catches, discards, biomass of the system, mean Trophic Level of the system and exergy) obtained by a model approach, was applied. The model used was a mass-balance model of the lagoon ecosystem developed with the software package Ecopath with Ecosim. The 73 scenarios obtained by changing the fishing effort of the two different fisheries were used to explore the impact of fishing activity on the ecosystem. The results showed that the two activities are strongly interrelated, even if they do not exploit the same resources, and that the mechanical clam harvesting is the driving force able to affect the ecosystem state fundamentally. All this produces a strong conflict between the two kinds of fisheries. The ecosystem and social optimisation depend mainly upon a reduction of clam fishery, while the optimisation of the economic aspects is strictly linked to the maintenance of this fishing activity.
