FishMan · Unwanted catches of trawl fisheries: ecosystem effects and advances to an integrated management approach in the Mediterranean

Unwanted catches of trawl fisheries: ecosystem effects and advances to an integratedmanagement approach in the Mediterranean

Humans have profoundly impacted Earth's ecosystems to the extent that we have generated a new geological era, the Anthropocene. Despite an ancient and profound link between humans and the sea, one of the main attributes of this era is the human impact on marine ecosystems. The sea provides us with food and overall contribute to human well-being. In this context, there is an urgent need to address the environmental effects of human activities to maintain healthy marine ecosystems, and attaining sustainable fishing is a priority in the political agenda. This urgent issue was partly addressed in the 2014 Common Fisheries Policy by the introduction of the Landing Obligation. The CFP considered the reduction of unwanted catches of European fisheries as a matter of priority. However, at that moment, there was little evidence on the effects of the new normative on marine ecosystems but also on the fisheries sector. FishMan project adopted a multi-disciplinary approach to assess potential effects of the Landing Obligation on Mediterranean socio-ecological fisheries systems, and explored alternatives for sustainable fisheries. The project combined data sources of different nature from a NW Mediterranean case study: from basic ecological knowledge on benthic communities from fishing grounds, to fishermen perception on alternative sustainable paths of the sector. Four main objectives were proposed to cover the different angles of the fisheries sustainability problem: i) the assessment of biological assemblages’ vulnerability to trawling; ii) a size-spectra model to explore the ecosystem consequences of fisheries selectivity measures; iii) a framework to monitor the ecological and socio-economic sustainability of a fishery system; iv) incorporation of fishermen perception on management and feedback on sustainable alternatives; v) exploration of wider societal perception on marine and coastal areas in the Mediterranean. The research activities undertaken to achieve these objectives shed light on the state of the fisheries system in the case study, with loss of the most vulnerable marine species due to increased fishing intensity and an important socio-economic impact on local fisheries; however, positive results suggested alternative fishing practices that could reduce ecosystem disturbance while having minimal socio-economic impacts on fishermen.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз