TOWARDS COHERENT MARINE SPATIAL PLANNING ACROSS THE EUROPEAN MACARONESIA

The biogeographic region known as European Macaronesia comprises the archipelagos of the Azores, Canary Islands and Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean. The collective exclusive economic zones surrounding the archipelagos is a vast area of approximately two million km2. The Directive 2014/89/EU of the European Union (EU) obliged EU Member States, including their archipelagos, to pursue sustainable use of their waters through Marine Spatial Planning (MSP). Planning the large marine areas of the Macaronesia is not an easy endeavour, particularly when establishing the domestic frameworks for MSP implies sharing of competences among national and subnational authorities and is dependent on inter-departmental collaboration. Furthermore, the complexity of MSP arrangements, including legislation, governance, planning processes and documentation, is a barrier to coherent regional MSP and the application of the ecosystem approach, due to a lack of understanding across borders. This paper reviews and synthetises the national and subnational frameworks for MSP in the Macaronesian archipelagos. It also compares the principles guiding MSP in each archipelago to determine the coherence across the region, with the aim of outlining the basis for transboundary cooperation in the European Macaronesia.En prens

The underreported presence of the subtidal seagrass Cymodocea nodosa in rocky intertidal pools of the Canary Islands

During 2014, 21 patches of Cymodocea nodosa were found in intertidal pools in Fuerteventura (Canary Islands). Pool substratum was mixed sand and rock, but mostly dominated by stone bottoms. Most plants were established with fully exposed rhizomes, filling small fissures without sediment. During subsequent sampling surveys between 2016 and 2019, the presence of these patches was consistent over time in an environment normally considered extreme for most seagrasses. As far as we know, the presence of Cymodocea nodosa patches in intertidal areas has not been observed previously in the Canary Islands. If the presence of C. nodosa patches in these intertidal pools is stable over time, it raises new environmental management and conservation questions for this endangered species in the Canary Islands. In addition, due to the current regression of C. nodosa meadows, our observations represent an optimistic perspective that underline the need for specific monitoring plans for this ecosystem

What scientific observations tell us about catches in the artisanal purse-seine fishery off the Canary Islands

In the Canary Islands, the small-scale fleet performs daily fishing trips, being the small pelagic species usually caught with purse-seines. In 2017, a monthly programme of scientific observations was launched to characterize the catches of the artisanal purse-seine fleet, whose discards were considered irrelevant. Here we present a summary of the species composition recorded during 61 fishing trips and the size structure of the main targeted species (i.e. Scomber colias, Trachurus spp., Sardinella spp. and Sardina pilchardus), including both the retained and discarded catches. In the period under study (2017-2021) discards reached noticeable values of around 25% of the total fish caught, attaining 40% if we look at the catches of S. colias. The main reasons observed for discarding fish are market demand and the mean size of the school caught, which generally lead to the net slipping (i.e. the process to open the purse-seine to release excess or unwanted catch into the sea), a regular practice that remains unrecorded and estimates are difficult to report.Estudio parcialmente financiado por el Fondo Europeo Marítimo y de Pesca (FEMP) a través del Programa Nacional de Datos Básicos del sector pesquero español para la recopilación, gestión y  uso de los datos del sector pesquero y el apoyo al asesoramiento científico, en relación con la Política Pesquera Común