The current project will realize a comprehensive inventory of fishing efforts and sea turtles by-catch rate and mortality rate for every fishing gear along Tunisian coasts. This survey will lead to the design of maps describing the overlap of fishing efforts distribution with feeding, wintering and nesting areas of sea turtles. At a second stage, we will look for mitigation measures, focusing our action based on the areas of maximum interaction identified thanks to the mapping and taking into account the most impacting fishing techniques (highest by-catch and mortality rate). In close collaboration with fishermen, we will create fishing gears prototypes susceptible to reduce sea turtles by-catch. These prototypes will be tested in comparison with non-modified gears by measuring both target species and by-catch.

The objective is to identify alternative fishing gears both commercially efficient and turtle friendly. The project will be complemented by an action plan for awareness and spread of the results toward fishermen. Interviews of fishermen along the ports of Tunisian coasts will be the occasion of community awareness sessions. The awareness sessions will reach at least 400 fishermen. In addition, the results of tested-prototypes will be presented during five restitution sessions in the main ports (Sfax, Chebba, Sousse, Zarsis, Mahdia, Teboulba). If one of the tested-prototypes revealed itself both commercially beneficial and reducing sea turtle capture, an effort will be spent to convince fishermen to use the improved gear(s).