SEAwise, a collaborative project working to break down barriers to Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) in Europe, has published a new set of key findings. The latest insights add important knowledge on the social, ecological, and economic factors that feed into sustainable fishing and how European fisheries can best respond to a fast-changing world.
Three new reports from SEAwise explore the current state of regional fisheries management, historic and future migrations of fish stocks, and the various factors that influence fisher behaviour. The reports come as part of the project’s drive to create pathways for using Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) in European fisheries. EBFM is a way of managing fisheries that works to protect both marine ecosystems and the interests of the people who depend on them – preserving fisheries and the many benefits they bring to people. It does this by incorporating all the ecological, social, and economic elements affecting fisheries, rather than just focusing on particular stocks or species.
SEAwise is working to create an interactive web-based tool that will help fisheries managers and other stakeholders understand how they can put EBFM into practice in European fisheries. Development of the tool is underpinned by a large-scale programme of research, which is being undertaken by SEAwise project partners from 24 universities and other research organisations in Europe. Much of the work focuses on SEAwise’s four ‘Case Study regions’ – the North Sea, the Western Waters, the Baltic Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea.
Three new SEAwise reports have now been published, covering the current state of regional fisheries management, historic and future migrations of fish stocks, and influences on fisher behaviour. In the first report, ‘The performance of existing management plans’, researchers reviewed how well current regional fisheries management measures are helping fisheries to meet policy objectives for sustainability set out by the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Their conclusions were that much progress is still needed overall to meet the objectives. In addition, the report concluded that many objectives lack assessment indicators, meaning that measuring progress towards them is difficult. The findings of the review will be used as a baseline from which to measure progress towards EBFM.
Commenting on the value of the report’s findings, Gerjan Piet, Senior Scientist for Marine Ecology at Wageningen Marine Research, said: “While the typical TAC-based fisheries management is advancing towards achieving objectives for commercial species, there is a major knowledge gap on the implementation and performance of other types of measures, such as technical measures or Marine Protected Areas. Without such information, there can be no EBFM”.
The second report, ‘Historic and future spatial distribution of fished stocks’, fine-tunes an approach to understanding patterns of fish movements and geographical location – both as they currently stand, and under possible future conditions. These possible future conditions include scenarios under climate change and other human activities in the marine space. Distribution maps were created for five species: red mullet, hake, cod, conger eel, and turbot. The process revealed that some of these species are already shifting further north (for example, cod) or further south (for example, hake).
“Particular effort was needed to disentangle the confounding impacts of fishing pressure and climate change,” Dr Dimitrios Damalas, Principal Researcher at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, commented on the research. “Although it is difficult to understand the workings behind whether these fish migrations are due to climate change or intensive fishing, our work indicates that climate change is a significant driver at least in the case of species shifting northwards.”
A number of predictions were generated for the selected species, which will be made available in an online application in due course. The predictions will also feed into further investigations of possible knock-on effects that migrating fish stocks could have on fisheries and marine ecosystems.
The third report explores factors that influence fisher behaviour. This was done by drawing on various studies already undertaken in fisheries across Europe, from the Scottish lobster and crab fleet to small- and large-scale fishers in the Adriatic Sea. A wide range of factors were identified as having an influence on the fishing patterns and behaviour of fishers. This included factors more typically known and understood such as sea conditions, movements in fish stocks, and fuel prices, but also social ones that are less often considered such as business structure, family succession, and personal identity. “It is important to work towards a better understanding of fisher behaviour; what drives them, how do they make choices and what do they value?” Marloes Kraan, researcher at Wageningen Economic Research (WEcR), said of the report. “We are finally starting to realise that human behaviour is a key source of uncertainty when it comes to fisheries management, but that this can be addressed through an interdisciplinary approach.”
The results from this research will be vital in developing models that better account for the various influences that affect the way that fishers conduct their business, and the way that they make decisions. This will help SEAwise create tools for fisheries management that are realistic to the realities of fishing, and are truly useful to those working in fisheries.
All three of the new reports, along with other reports already published by SEAwise, are available at https://seawiseproject.org/seawise-results/.
About SEAwise
SEAwise is an international project paving the way for the effective implementation of Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management in Europe. Working as a collaborative network, SEAwise is designed to deliver a fully operational tool that will allow fishers, managers, and policy makers to easily apply EBFM structures in their own fisheries. With the goal of enhancing the value of fisheries for the benefit of all stakeholders, SEAwise will create tools and advice for collaborative management aimed at achieving long-term goals under environmental change and increasing competition for space.