SEAwise Report on review guidelines

This deliverable report provides the framework, guidelines, and specific instructions for systematic reviews to be undertaken with SEAwise. The report also includes pre-registered review protocols for five key systematic reviews focussing on the social effects of and on fishing, ecological effects on fisheries yield, ecological effects of fisheries, spatial management impacts, and evaluation of management strategies. The results of these reviews are reported in subsequent x.1 deliverable reports and will provide a synthesis of foundational knowledge for each of SEAwise’s work packages two-through-six, respectively.  This report contains a brief overview of the motivation for undertaking a series of systematic reviews and the selected framework that is being employed for all reviews across the project. Furthermore, this report provides detailed instructions for carrying out each step of a systematic review which can be applied to both the key SEAwise reviews, but also any other review either within or outside of this project. This includes, descriptions of how important databases function, R-scripts for processing records from databases and approaches to data-management for large collaborative reviews.  Additionally, this report serves as the repository for the search protocols for five reviews. These protocols ensure transparent methods and reduced bias in the searching, screening and data extraction.  The success of the coordination across five large-scale systematic reviews is illustrated in the coherence of the approaches and detailed methods described in this report. This report describes results of the SEAwise project. More information about the project can be found at https://seawiseproject.org/</p

SEAwise first synthetic summary report on social and economic aspects of fishing for online tool

The SEAwise project works to deliver a fully operational tool that will allow fishers, managers, and policy makers to easily apply Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management. This SEAwise report synthesizes social and economic aspects of fishing, providing an idea of the indirect impact of the fisheries on the local and coastal communities in terms of relevant indicators (e.g. full equivalent employment and added values) to describe the sale and purchase interdependencies between producers and consumers within national and regional economies. An accurate representation of the link between fisheries and societal benefits is of paramount importance to summarise all socio-economic effects of specific management.The key social and economic aspects of fishing explored in this deliverable are:Comparison of small-scale fisheries (SSF) and large-scale fisheries (LSF) in terms of capacity, economic and social indicators,Evaluation of the direct effect of fishing sector on connected economic sectors for SSF and LSF,Definition of the fishing communities as one of the aspects of relevance to look at to better understand the social and economic importance of fishing,Evaluation of the impact of the fuel price on the fish prices, as an element affecting both demand and supply,Overview of the fishing footprint in terms of CO2 emissions, influenced by the gear utilized and the vessel length across 7 different fisheries in Europe by Country.The fisheries considered are specifically:Demersal fisheries operating in Western Waters (Bay of Biscay), including vessels from Spain and France;Demersal fisheries operating in Western Waters (Celtic Sea), including vessels from Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland and England;Pelagic fisheries operating in Western Waters (Bay of Biscay), including vessels from Basque Country;Demersal fisheries operating in North Sea, including vessels from Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Scotland, Germany, Nederland, Scotland and Sweden;Demersal fisheries, operating in Central Mediterranean Sea (Adriatic and Western Ionian Sea), including vessels from Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania and Montenegro;Demersal fisheries, operating in Eastern Mediterranean Sea (Eastern Ionian Sea), including vessels from Greece;Trawl fisheries operating in the Western Baltic Sea, including vessels from Denmark, Sweden, and Germany.Across the different regions considered, the SSF is more represented in Mediterranean than in Western Waters and North Sea, although the definition of SSF utilised was not the same. In all case studies, SSF carbon footprint is lower than the one of LSF, due to the higher fuel consumption associated to active gears. Moreover, LSF generally fish far away from the home port, further increasing the use of fuel to reach fishing grounds.Although SSF has generally a landing value lower than the LSF, from a social point of view, especially in Mediterranean, the number of employees is quite even and, in some cases, SSF has more employees than LSF.The fuel price influences fish price for the stocks characterizing the landings of the specific fisheries. In Mediterranean case studies, deep-water rose shrimp and mullets prices were affected by the fuel price. In Germany, the fuel impacts were significant only for whiting, while for Spain the correlation was found weakly significant only for haddock (small scale fleet) and sole (large scale). No significant relationship was found for Ireland, while for France a weak significance was observed for haddock and whiting (large scale). The testing of linear correlation between fish price and fuel price by stock highlighted for Belgium a significant dependence for Nephrops in area VII and for Sole in area 27.VII.e for large scale fleet. Turbot price was significantly affected by the fuel price in North Sea in several Countries.The fuel costs impacted GVA of LSF more than of SSF across the case studies, although the capital and the labour costs represent also a key element of the economic performance of both fleets. The recent increase in fuel price is expected to impact both fleets negatively (STECF, 2022), with increasing fish price impacting only a few species of the considered fisheries while operating costs are increased.The fuel consumption and the GVA were identified as the most important economic indicators, while the number of employees and the average wage were considered the most important from a social point of view. The carbon emissions were also identified as a major aspect of fishing in terms of human footprint.In the context of governance, the 2013 reform of the CFP emphasized that the policy rests on the three dimensions of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental. In this report, we have highlighted preliminary findings focused on the social and economic aspects of fishing within the EU.The key indicators and suggestions described in this report to enhance the prototype will be used in the further work in SEAwise on the EBFM toolbox.Read more about the project at www.seawiseproject.org</p

SEAwise Report on the key social and economic aspects of regional fisheries

Fishing is a human activity with various social and economic implications. In most countries, those implications are key factors to consider when deciding on specific management strategies. In this report, the fisheries management strategies implemented in the different European marine regions are reviewed, and relevant indicators, models and tools that can be used to predict the effectiveness of these strategies, from a social and economic point of view are identified. The objective was to identify the critical social and economic aspects of fisheries,  relevant social and economic indicators, and regionally‐relevant management measures to be considered in the evaluations of different management strategies later in the project.   The scoping consultations and systematic reviews identified a long list of potentially relevant key social and economic aspects and management measures. Among these, the most frequently mentioned items identified in scoping with stakeholders were windfarms, employment/jobs, MPAs, food supply, small-scale fisheries, local communities and pollution. The systematic review identified landings (volume or value), effort (days at sea), fuel costs, number of vessels, profit, aspects of costs, economic performance, sustainability-resilience, compliance and capacity as frequently occurring topics. The fisheries management policies most frequently mentioned were effort control, landing obligation, Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ), MPAs and TAC. Among the papers analyzed, more than 30%, concerned the Mediterranean region, followed by Western Waters, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, indicating a higher contribution of Mediterranean studies to the conclusions. Aspects identified frequently in both scoping and in systematic reviews included MPAs and small-scale fisheries, which were all identified in both methods as frequently occurring. However, there were also aspects which appeared to be represented differently in the evaluations (e.g. employment and local communities) indicating discrepancies between the available knowledge and that sought by the end users. The report describes results from the SEAwise project. More information can be found at https://seawiseproject.org/</p