Fishing for small pelagics such as anchovy and sardine in Northern Morocco was a common practice during the Middle Age for vessels coming from the Southern region of the Iberian Peninsula (Santamaría, 1995). This activity was maintained for centuries by boats following fish schools in their migrations across the narrow sea strip separating the Iberian and the African coasts. The establishment of canning and fishmeal factories in the Canary Islands during the sixties permitted the expansion of the Canarian fishery to the region between Sidi Ifni (29º30’N) and cape Bojador (26ºN). In successive years it extended down to the border with Mauritania.

The introduction of the Law of the Sea forced fishing countries to negotiate the access to resources in coastal countries. The resulting agreements changed completely the features of small pelagic fisheries in the region making them the more and more restrictive over the years. Since the end of the 1980s, access to the fishing grounds for the Spanish fleet has been increasingly restricted and the catches reduced accordingly. In 1995 the protocol between the European Union and Morocco led to the replacement of the Spanish fleet with the Moroccan fleet in zone B (Saharan and Moroccan coasts, from 26ºN to 29ºN). The Spanish vessels were displaced further south, to zone C (Saharan coast between 22ºN and 26ºN), which had always been the active fishing area of other countries, principally the former USSR and other Eastern European countries (Guénette et al,. 2001). Finally, fisheries in Morocco were closed to the Canarian purse seiners by the end of the Fishery Agreement in1999.

The fishery was closed in 1999, with the end of the Fishery Agreement of 1995. Last Fishery Agreement, signed in 2006, does not include possibilities of this fishery.