Fish are important to humans food sources that can contribute to bridge the food gap of animal protein in Egypt, because they contain a large proportion of animal protein, vitamins and minerals, in addition they contain a high proportion...
moreFish are important to humans food sources that can contribute to bridge the food gap of animal protein in Egypt, because they contain a large proportion of animal protein, vitamins and minerals, in addition they contain a high proportion of essential amino acids necessary for the body. Despite the improved fish production in Egypt (≈1,500,000 ton in 2014: 23% from capture fisheries and 77% from cultured fish), the increasing pressure from growing populations and the desire to increase per capita consumption of fish requires us to reorder priorities in order to achieve optimum exploitation of available fish resources. Egypt as the most of the world needs to focus on fisheries, as productive renewable food resources that can contribute to the development or increase national income as well as safe the food for coming generations. This will be achieved by the development of capture fisheries and the expansion of aquaculture production especially mariculture. Many problems are facing the development of our natural and artificial fisheries like overfishing, habitat degradation, climate change, illegal fishing practices, pollution, shortage of fresh water ..etc. The present work, which is a part of graduation project for the first author, will evaluate the current status of our fishery resources and will discuss and analyse the challenges facing the development of fish production in Egypt (natural resources and aquaculture). The different impacts of these challenges will be illustrated, and finally the study will suggest some practical solutions to overcome these challenges and how to mitigate their negative impacts.
