Society and culture

Two FLAGs and two LAGs from Finland and Estonia signed a cooperation agreement to promote youth exchanges around fisheries cultural heritage in order to revitalise the traditional links between Estonian coastal villages and Finnish coastal areas. More information available in EN, FR, LV, ES, RO, PL.

--ARCHIVED as of 31 January 2020-- The FLAG area covers the fisheries communities and coastline of the three combined local authority areas of Scottish Borders, East Lothian and Fife. The area includes 12 working harbours, several of which are discrete fishery harbours built in the 19th century.

Lake Peipsi is the fourth largest lake in Europe and Estonia's largest FLAG. The Peipsi fisheries areas include Lake Peipsi, Lake Pihkva, Lake Lämmijärv, nine lakes in Vooremaa and the coastal areas of Suur-Emajõgi downstream from the city of Tartu.

The peninsula of Setúbal is located in the south of Lisbon and has many urban and suburban centres. Here, fishing is an important activity that has developed over centuries along the Atlantic coast and the estuaries of Sado and Tejo.

The region Oeste consists of several fishing communities primarily dedicated to small scale fishing and gathering activities such as the gathering of shellfish, seaweed, mussels and barnacles, using mostly small boats. It includes two municipalities, Peniche and Nazaré, which act as twin centres of fishing activity and attract skilled labour, investment, business equipment and infrastructure.

The FLAG area includes the parishes of Marinha Grande and Vieira de Leiria in the municipality of Marinha Grande and the parish of Coimbrão in the municipality of Leiria. The fishing communities here include Vieira de Leiria, Pedrógão and São Pedro de Moel

The Elbe-Roeder-Dreieck FLAG is situated east of the river Elbe on the border between Brandenburg and Saxony. It is a rural region with a few focal points of large industry including steel and chemical plants. The landscape is characterised by high-value vineyards along the Elbe river and pond landscapes in the Roeder riverside floodplain. This area has been used for pond farming for about 300 years. The ponds were designed for purely economic reasons and served exclusively for carp pond farming.

Having declined from 1000 oyster farms in 1970 to just 300 in 2015, the Bassin d´Arcachon FLAG area has seen the number of oyster farmers stabilize, thanks, in part, to work with 13 different schools to take pupils out on oyster boats to see what it means to be an oyster farmer.

The FLAG area includes the most developed area of the island of Crete (North West and North East coastal parts of Heraklion) in terms of tourism. Despite the extensive coastline, fishing is limited to demersal and small pelagic fish species which are promoted to the local fish markets.

Due to its extensive history and unique natural environment, this FLAG area which covers the southwest part of Heraklion Prefecture, (Messara Gulf), is rich with cultural and natural assets.