Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SEAwise (Shaping ecosystem based fisheries management)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-04-01 bis 2024-09-30
Fisheries provide sustenance, employment, economic and social activity in coastal areas and beyond, throughout Europe. Increasing these benefits while reducing ecosystem impacts, in an era of environmental change and increased competition for marine space, presents a key challenge to European Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM). SEAwise aims to provide a fully operational approach for European Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM), thereby addressing the need to increase fisheries benefits while reducing ecosystem impact under environmental change and increasing competition for space.
SEAwise approaches this aim by building a network of stakeholders, advisory bodies, decision makers and scientists to co-design key priorities and approaches to EBFM and to ensure SEAwise’s continued impact long after the project period, assembling a new knowledge base on European fisheries interactions with social and ecological systems that integrates scientist and stakeholder experience based knowledge, developing predictive models of fisheries interactions with social and ecological systems to evaluate, select and implement EBFM strategies across Europe accounting for changes in the environment and use of marine space and providing ready-for-uptake advice for EBFM for Mediterranean, western and northern European waters.
SEAwise approaches this aim by building a network of stakeholders, advisory bodies, decision makers and scientists to co-design key priorities and approaches to EBFM and to ensure SEAwise’s continued impact long after the project period, assembling a new knowledge base on European fisheries interactions with social and ecological systems that integrates scientist and stakeholder experience based knowledge, developing predictive models of fisheries interactions with social and ecological systems to evaluate, select and implement EBFM strategies across Europe accounting for changes in the environment and use of marine space and providing ready-for-uptake advice for EBFM for Mediterranean, western and northern European waters.
The SEAwise network of stakeholders, advisory bodies and scientists have interacted in a series of workshops and meetings. Together, we identified key priorities and approaches to provide an open knowledge base on European Social-Ecological fisheries Systems and co-designed the appearance of technical and non-technical EBFM advice tools.
New relationships between the environment and reproduction, growth or maturity were included in a variety of models. Including environmental changes led to poorer projected stock status for many of the stocks than the scenario with no environmental change. However, the relative ranking of management scenarios in terms of stock biomass did not change. Alternative future socio-economic scenarios were combined with management scenarios with a specific focus on small scale (SSF) and large-scale (LSF) fleets were evaluated based on socioeconomic models incorporating the enhanced submodels. The models estimated socioeconomic aspects such as GVA and price as well as kg CO2 per kg of fish landed. Social aspects investigated included understanding of fisheries behaviour, ways to identify fishing communities and connecting them to fleets, community profiling, social vulnerability indices and social impact consultation methods.
Increased socio-economic and ecological benefits could be attained by the alternative management scenarios compared to the status-quo scenarios. Depending on the specific fleet and country, management positioned between the extremes of status quo and FMSY with a strict enforcement of the landing obligation could potentially mitigate some of the negative socioeconomic impacts of climate change on the fishery and simultaneously decrease CO2 per kg of fish landed. In economic terms, the management scenarios performed differently for small and large scale fisheries and the two segments varied in the impact of climate change. Fisheries management based on FMSY as a target with strict implementation of a landing obligation in most cases led to an increase in SSB, a fishing mortality level well below the target, and an increase in long term landings. The increase in landings was however limited, except for stocks that were presently at low levels and fished well above FMSY. Using fishing mortality ranges to introduce flexibility in the TAC and quota system did not solve the problem of choke species in the mixed fisheries.
The effects of area restrictions of fishing activities on bycatch and habitat impact varied depending on whether the area hosted the species of interest and how effort was redistributed. In most cases, the areas currently sugggested did not contain high densities of bycatch species and as a result, their effect was limited. Similarly, area restrictions of fishing activities mostly had a very small effect on the mean benthic status in the larger area. The effect differed when taking fishery displacement into account: in some case the average status declined after the implementation of closed areas but a portion of habitats became very healthy. In general, decreasing the overall fishing effort increased the overall mean benthic status of a habitat or area and dereased bycatch. Therefore, a combination of management actions were needed to improve bycatch impact and seafloor health. If specific fishing techniques were prohibited in fit-to-purpose areas to limit juvenile catches, the risk of incidental bycatch and the degradation of the benthos status, this improved status, showing that closed areas can be effective if designed appropriately. Implementing closed areas had socioeconomic impacts such as decreased catches and increased operating costs and fuel use. This resulted from a displacement of effort to surrounding areas, with potential harmful effects on biodiversity in these areas. In the long term, a changing climate could greatly change fish and fisheries' productivity and the marine ecosystems at large, thereby greatly altering the predicted benefits and costs of closed areas.
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New relationships between the environment and reproduction, growth or maturity were included in a variety of models. Including environmental changes led to poorer projected stock status for many of the stocks than the scenario with no environmental change. However, the relative ranking of management scenarios in terms of stock biomass did not change. Alternative future socio-economic scenarios were combined with management scenarios with a specific focus on small scale (SSF) and large-scale (LSF) fleets were evaluated based on socioeconomic models incorporating the enhanced submodels. The models estimated socioeconomic aspects such as GVA and price as well as kg CO2 per kg of fish landed. Social aspects investigated included understanding of fisheries behaviour, ways to identify fishing communities and connecting them to fleets, community profiling, social vulnerability indices and social impact consultation methods.
Increased socio-economic and ecological benefits could be attained by the alternative management scenarios compared to the status-quo scenarios. Depending on the specific fleet and country, management positioned between the extremes of status quo and FMSY with a strict enforcement of the landing obligation could potentially mitigate some of the negative socioeconomic impacts of climate change on the fishery and simultaneously decrease CO2 per kg of fish landed. In economic terms, the management scenarios performed differently for small and large scale fisheries and the two segments varied in the impact of climate change. Fisheries management based on FMSY as a target with strict implementation of a landing obligation in most cases led to an increase in SSB, a fishing mortality level well below the target, and an increase in long term landings. The increase in landings was however limited, except for stocks that were presently at low levels and fished well above FMSY. Using fishing mortality ranges to introduce flexibility in the TAC and quota system did not solve the problem of choke species in the mixed fisheries.
The effects of area restrictions of fishing activities on bycatch and habitat impact varied depending on whether the area hosted the species of interest and how effort was redistributed. In most cases, the areas currently sugggested did not contain high densities of bycatch species and as a result, their effect was limited. Similarly, area restrictions of fishing activities mostly had a very small effect on the mean benthic status in the larger area. The effect differed when taking fishery displacement into account: in some case the average status declined after the implementation of closed areas but a portion of habitats became very healthy. In general, decreasing the overall fishing effort increased the overall mean benthic status of a habitat or area and dereased bycatch. Therefore, a combination of management actions were needed to improve bycatch impact and seafloor health. If specific fishing techniques were prohibited in fit-to-purpose areas to limit juvenile catches, the risk of incidental bycatch and the degradation of the benthos status, this improved status, showing that closed areas can be effective if designed appropriately. Implementing closed areas had socioeconomic impacts such as decreased catches and increased operating costs and fuel use. This resulted from a displacement of effort to surrounding areas, with potential harmful effects on biodiversity in these areas. In the long term, a changing climate could greatly change fish and fisheries' productivity and the marine ecosystems at large, thereby greatly altering the predicted benefits and costs of closed areas.
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SEAwise uses the indicators and fisheries models developed and advanced to provide the foundation for advice on economically effective and socially acceptable governance under climate change, productivity changes, and the Landing Obligation. The project contributes to the restoration and conservation of coastal and marine Social-Ecological Systems, whilst finding a compromise between maximising benefits to fisheries and minimising adverse effects throughout. Maximising society's readiness to implement new research knowledge from SEAwise is crucial in attaining the full impact of the scientific advice for consumers and policy makers produced in the project. For this reason, collaborative networks are an integral part of SEAwise, ensuring that results remain relevant, readily understandable and applicable to decision-making by policymakers, producers, influencers and consumers. The communication strategy targets dissemination activities to a variety of audiences, bringing significant benefits to public understanding, consumer behaviour and policy decisions. SEAwise results and products are reviewed by expert end users, ensuring co-construction and integration of comments.
In the final stage of the project, SEAwise will connect the output of the investigated management and climate scenarios to social effects on fleet and community level to ecological impacts on target and non-target species and habitats. The results will be presented in EBFM tools presenting ready-for-uptake advice and reviewed by potential end users. The broader results from SEAwise will be synthesized and discussed at a dedicated ICES/GFCM/SEAwise symposium in Brussels, with participation of global and European experts, managers and policy makers. The legacy of SEAwise will be ensured by producing online course materials and tools that are readily implementable in the ICES advisory apps and presented in a variety of ICES and GFCM groups.
In the final stage of the project, SEAwise will connect the output of the investigated management and climate scenarios to social effects on fleet and community level to ecological impacts on target and non-target species and habitats. The results will be presented in EBFM tools presenting ready-for-uptake advice and reviewed by potential end users. The broader results from SEAwise will be synthesized and discussed at a dedicated ICES/GFCM/SEAwise symposium in Brussels, with participation of global and European experts, managers and policy makers. The legacy of SEAwise will be ensured by producing online course materials and tools that are readily implementable in the ICES advisory apps and presented in a variety of ICES and GFCM groups.