Corallium rubrum has been fished for 5000 years, and since the 1800s its fishery reached an industrial scale with several hundred boats dredging the Mediterranean for this valuable resource of the jewelry industry. Dramatic yield declines occurred in the 1980s, and the second FAO ad hoc Corallium rubrum consultation in 1988 concluded that the species was already overharvested (FAO 1988; Cognetti 1989). Subsequent research confirmed not only that the yields had dropped, but throughout the Mediterranean the known red coral populations in diving range consisted entirely of much smaller colonies (ca. 3 cm on average) than the maximum size of the species (more than 50 cm) (Garcia Rodriguez and Massó 1986; Santangelo et al. 1993; Santangelo and Abbiati 2001; Garrabou and Harmelin 2002; Santangelo et al. 2007; Tsounis et al. 2007). [...]

International Workshop on Red Coral Science, Management, and Trade: Lessons from the Mediterranean, 23-26 September 2009, Naples, Italy.-- 7 pages

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