EcoFishMan, a new EU FP7 RTD project, plays an important role in the development of a holistic fisheries management system, which takes into account all aspects of sustainability.
It will contribute to the reform of the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and focus not only on the catching, but the whole fisheries sector, targeting elimination of discards and maintaining economic and social viability.
The problems in the European fisheries include overfishing, fleet overcapacity, heavy subsidies, low economic resilience, declines in the volume of fish caught, discards and underutilised seafood. The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the framework governing European fisheries management, is further accused of ignoring economic, social and ecological factors. The key solutions to these problems being developed within EcoFishMan involve sustainable results-based management and increased utilisation of the raw material, the holistic approach of the fisheries network.
The outcome of this project will be a fisheries management system, developed in collaboration with the important stakeholders in fisheries. The design of the system will take into account ecological, economic and social factors. It will be based on the requirements of the stakeholders themselves and will utilise modern technology to access data on surveillance, assessment of stocks economic aspects, sociological aspects, and more. This will enhance implementation of the system and improve cooperation and mutual understanding between policy makers and stakeholders.
The €3.8 million project has been funded under the EU FP7 (EU seventh framework programme) and has a duration of three years. The kickoff meeting will be in Reykjavik, Iceland on 8th March 2011. The EcoFishMan consortium consists of the following 13 members: Matis (IS), Eurofish (DK), CETMAR (ES), The Bitland Enterprise (FO), University of Iceland, National Research Council / Institute of Marine Sciences (IT), Nofima Marin (NO), University of Tromsø (NO), Centro de Ciências do Mar (PT), IPIMAR (PT), MAPIX technologies Ltd (UK), Marine Scotland Science (UK), Seafish (UK).
For further information please contact:
Dr. Anna Kristín Daníelsdóttir or dr. Sveinn Margeirsson.
