STRENGTHENING REGIONAL COOPERATION IN FISHERIES DATA COLLECTION

fishPi was a research project with the aim of “Strengthening regional cooperation in the area of fisheries data collection”. The project brought together over 40 experts from 13 scientific institutes in 12 countries (10 member states (MS)) and two internationally recognised survey design experts. It was funded by EU MARE grant MARE/2014/19, with a 14 month timeline commencing in April 2015. This project has trialled the way sampling designs would be developed in a regional setting and showed that collaboration and consultation is required at face to face meetings through regional groups that focus on a particular group of fisheries. The project was the first step in this process and one of the main outcomes is the framework to take the process forward; developing data formats, data sharing agreements and easily accessible software for data sharing, checking and analysis, and for the simulation testing of sampling designs.European Unio

Working Group on Governance of the Regional Database & Estimation System (WGRDBES-GOV; Outputs from 2020 meeting)

The Working Group on Governance of the Regional Database & Estimation System (WGRDBESGOV) provides the governance function for both the existing Regional Database (RDB) and the new Regional Database & Estimation System (RDBES) that is currently in development. It is composed of representatives from ICES member countries and EU Regional Coordination Groups (RCGs). In this report, the WGRDBESGOV reviews the RDBES developments performed during 2020 and plans for the work required in 2021 and beyond. It also considers how RDB data has been used and proposes changes required to the current Data Policy. The RDBES is currently planned to replace both the existing ICES InterCatch and RDB database systems and has an important part to play in increasing transparency and improving the quality of stock assessment within ICES. To this end, two workshops have been planned for 2021 which will help data submitters with the transition to the new system. A new working group is also proposed to enable the ICES community to move forward with estimation using the RDBES data model. Following on from the data call issued in 2020, another test data call is also planned for 2021 which will give further motivation for people to become involved and provide a robust test of the process. The RDB and RDBES must ensure that data can be used by the RCGs and authorised groups in ICES whilst ensuring that only permitted users have access to the confidential data – the rules relating to this have previously been defined in the RDB Data Policy. In line with discussions at the ICES Data and Information Group (DIG), it is proposed to split the current Data Policy into two new documents: a Data License, and a Data Governance document. It is important to remember that the ultimate success of the RDBES will rely on the effort and contributions from a large number of people in the wider ICES/EU data collection community and not just the relatively small groups who attend the WGRDBESGOV or Core Group meetings. The WGRDBESGOV continues to encourage these contributions

Recreational sea fishing in Europe in a global contextParticipation rates, fishing effort, expenditure, and implications for monitoring and assessment

Marine recreational fishing (MRF) is a high-participation activity with large economic value and social benefits globally, and it impacts on some fish stocks. Although reporting MRF catches is a European Union legislative requirement, estimates are only available for some countries. Here, data on numbers of fishers, participation rates, days fished, expenditures, and catches of two widely targeted species were synthesized to provide European estimates of MRF and placed in the global context. Uncertainty assessment was not possible due to incomplete knowledge of error distributions; instead, a semi-quantitative bias assessment was made. There were an estimated 8.7 million European recreational sea fishers corresponding to a participation rate of 1.6%. An estimated 77.6 million days were fished, and expenditure was Euro5.9 billion annually. There were higher participation, numbers of fishers, days fished and expenditure in the Atlantic than the Mediterranean, but the Mediterranean estimates were generally less robust. Comparisons with other regions showed that European MRF participation rates and expenditure were in the mid-range, with higher participation in Oceania and the United States, higher expenditure in the United States, and lower participation and expenditure in South America and Africa. For both northern European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax, Moronidae) and western Baltic cod (Gadus morhua, Gadidae) stocks, MRF represented 27% of the total removals. This study highlights the importance of MRF and the need for bespoke, regular and statistically sound data collection to underpin European fisheries management. Solutions are proposed for future MRF data collection in Europe and other regions to support sustainable fisheries management.Institut Francais de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer; French Ministry of Fisheries Management; Greek National Data Collection Programme; European Commission, Data Collection Framework; Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [MF1221, MF1230, MI001]; Norges Forskningsrad [267808]; State Department of Agriculture, Food Security and Fisheries Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania; Interreg IVa 2 Seas; Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs; European Fishery Fund; Government of Galicia [ED481B2014/034-0

Potential Environmental Impacts of Recreational Fishing on Marine Fish Stocks and Ecosystems

Marine recreational fishing (MRF) is a popular activity that involves millions of people worldwide. While the impacts of recreational fishing on freshwater ecosystems received increasing attention in recent decades, the consequences of MRF on marine fish and ecosystems are largely unstudied. MRF takes place mainly in coastal areas where most of its impacts concentrate. This review identified and ranked the activities and potential risks associated with MRF using a risk assessment matrix based on ecological and fisheries-related literature. The majority of the impacts were rated to be of minor importance (impacts that occur locally, are reversible, and comparably easy to manage on local scales). Three impacts were ranked as high-risk impacts (severe impacts that are difficult to reverse and to manage, and that may require management measures on a broad spatial scale): (1) the direct and indirect impacts of high and selective fishing mortality (truncation of the natural age and size structure, depensatory mechanisms, loss of genetic variability, evolutionary changes, and food web changes) because they potentially contribute to the decline of fish stocks and undermine biodiversity and ecological resilience, (2) the use of live bait organisms that originate from water bodies elsewhere because released or lost live bait organisms potentially impact the genetic, species, and ultimately ecosystem diversity, and (3) the loss of lead containing fishing tackle that potentially causes environmental contamination. The separation of MRF-induced impacts from other anthropogenic impacts is difficult and the impacts vary according to country-specific fishing practices, legislation, and cultural backgrounds. It can nonetheless be concluded that MRF can impact fish populations and coastal environments. In particular, the high-risk impacts require further investigations as information on their effects on marine fish stocks and ecosystems are generally sparse. Finally, the review outlines management implications for sustainable marine recreational fisheries that match the temporal and spatial scale of both the marine environment affected and the recreational fishing effort and proposes areas for future research

Assessing Knowledge Gaps and Management Needs to Cope With Barriers for Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability of Marine Recreational Fisheries: The Case of Spain

Este artículo contiene 14 páginas, 4 figuras.The European Parliament is concerned about the lack of information on the relevance of nine million Europeans engaged in marine recreational fishing (MRF), committing Member States to encourage environmental and socioeconomic sustainability of the sector. The objective of this paper is to provide recommendations to guide research actions and management policies, based on the case of Spain, a key country because its complex administrative regimen and the intensive use of its coasts, including 900,000 recreational fishers. A review of the state of the knowledge was performed to identify research gaps, while governance challenges were identified in an International Symposium on MRF. In the last two decades research on MRF was remarkable (139 publications). However, public investment in research (€2.44 million in the same period) should be improved to cover knowledge gaps on socioeconomic relevance, on impacts on vulnerable species and on implications of global warming. The license system should be standardized to allow estimation of effort, catch and expenditure. Social networks, mobile applications, fisher ecological knowledge, and citizen science programs could help to develop cost-effective research and management. Sciencebased, adaptive policies should improve the allocation of resources between MRF and other stakeholders, introducing co-management to reduce conflicts.This work received funds from the Xunta de Galicia under the modality of Grupos de Referencia Competitiva (Grant ED431C2019/11), RECREGES I and II projects under Grants ED481B2014/034-0 and ED481B2018/017, and SICORE project, funded by the Fundación Biodiversidad, Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica, Gobierno de España, Pleamar program, which is cofounded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. SV acknowledges the financial the European COST Action “Ocean Governance for Sustainability – challenges, options and the role of science,” the ICES Science Fund Project “Social Transformations of Marine Social-Ecological Systems,” and the CYTED program for the ECOMAR Network. JP-F received funds from the project “Governance challenges for sustainable small-scale fisheries: creating synergies with marine conservation and tourism” (GOBAMP II, CSO2013-45773-R), financed by Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain. JA was supported by a JDC postdoctoral research grant funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (ref. IJCI-2016-27681) and a Ramon y Cajal Grant funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (grant no. RYC2018-024488-I).Peer reviewe