Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SEAwise (Shaping ecosystem based fisheries management)
Reporting period: 2021-10-01 to 2023-03-31
Fisheries provide sustenance, employment, economic and social activity in coastal areas and beyond, throughout Europe. Increasing these benefits while reducing ecosystem impacts, in an era of environmental change and increased competition for marine space, presents a key challenge to European Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM). SEAwise aims to provide a fully operational approach for European Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM), thereby addressing the need to increase fisheries benefits while reducing ecosystem impact under environmental change and increasing competition for space.
SEAwise approaches this aim by building a network of stakeholders, advisory bodies, decision makers and scientists to co-design key priorities and approaches to EBFM and to ensure SEAwise’s continued impact long after the project period, assembling a new knowledge base on European fisheries interactions with social and ecological systems that integrates scientist and stakeholder experience based knowledge, developing predictive models of fisheries interactions with social and ecological systems to evaluate, select and implement EBFM strategies across Europe accounting for changes in the environment and use of marine space and providing ready-for-uptake advice for EBFM for Mediterranean, western and northern European waters.
SEAwise approaches this aim by building a network of stakeholders, advisory bodies, decision makers and scientists to co-design key priorities and approaches to EBFM and to ensure SEAwise’s continued impact long after the project period, assembling a new knowledge base on European fisheries interactions with social and ecological systems that integrates scientist and stakeholder experience based knowledge, developing predictive models of fisheries interactions with social and ecological systems to evaluate, select and implement EBFM strategies across Europe accounting for changes in the environment and use of marine space and providing ready-for-uptake advice for EBFM for Mediterranean, western and northern European waters.
The SEAwise network of stakeholders, advisory bodies and scientists have interacted in a series of workshops and meetings. Together, we identified key priorities and approaches to provide an open knowledge base on European Social-Ecological fisheries Systems. The systematic review revealed areas with substantial existing knowledge as well as area of high importance to stakeholders which have limited published knowledge in the scientific literature. In collaboration with ICES, specific guidance on transparency, quality assurance and estimation of uncertainty has been developed and a dedicated effort has been made to make results publicly available on the SEAwise website and at meetings with end users. The design of the prototype of the Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management Advice tool has begun, giving specific attention to the need to easily access regional information on ecological as well as social aspects, thereby moving towards a full EBFM advice tool.
SEAwise initiated innovative activities to provide ecological and social indicators of key priorities, including indicators for which documentation in the peer reviewed knowledge is currently lacking. The work includes social indicators of the performance of current management towards indicators of economic aspects, the balance between small and large-scale fisheries, coastal communities and human health benefits. The efficiency of the current governance in defining and attaining aims for management was reviewed and a mismatch in the balance between social and ecological system status and driver indicators was identified between the scoping exercise and the management system. The health impact of different fish and fish sizes was documented in a look-up table of the benefits to different population groups.
The work towards improving predictability of future productivity by incorporating ecosystem effects on fish stocks included studies of fish recruitment, growth and survival. Density proved to be an important factor impacting productivity as did various environmental impacts. Incorporating these factors improved predictions of recruitment and growth for some species, whereas others attained the greatest predictability using simple methods such as those currently used in many assessments. Effects of fishing on the ecosystem have been modelled, providing a catalogue of the effects on potentially endangered and threatened species, habitats, food webs and marine litter. This catalogue extends methods previously only applied in some regions such as the ICES FBIT approach to benthic impact and marine litter models to new regions, thereby providing comparable results across large European areas. Maps of the distribution of fish and fisheries have been assembled for all regions and the likely effects of future environmental change investigated. The results show that the climate induced changes may be smaller than is often speculated. Increasing the extent of limiting habitats can potentially increase fish biomass and yield, thereby aiding in the rebuilding of fish stocks and social benefits of these.
Modelling fish stocks and their interactions revealed that the current management approach leads to suboptimal exploitation of the stocks from both a social and an ecological perspective. A more flexible approach may help decrease overexploitation where needed and increase catches of currently underexploited stocks. In general, trade-offs exist between social indicators of food supply, health benefits and economic income and ecological indicators measuring impact of fishing on the ecosystem.
SEAwise initiated innovative activities to provide ecological and social indicators of key priorities, including indicators for which documentation in the peer reviewed knowledge is currently lacking. The work includes social indicators of the performance of current management towards indicators of economic aspects, the balance between small and large-scale fisheries, coastal communities and human health benefits. The efficiency of the current governance in defining and attaining aims for management was reviewed and a mismatch in the balance between social and ecological system status and driver indicators was identified between the scoping exercise and the management system. The health impact of different fish and fish sizes was documented in a look-up table of the benefits to different population groups.
The work towards improving predictability of future productivity by incorporating ecosystem effects on fish stocks included studies of fish recruitment, growth and survival. Density proved to be an important factor impacting productivity as did various environmental impacts. Incorporating these factors improved predictions of recruitment and growth for some species, whereas others attained the greatest predictability using simple methods such as those currently used in many assessments. Effects of fishing on the ecosystem have been modelled, providing a catalogue of the effects on potentially endangered and threatened species, habitats, food webs and marine litter. This catalogue extends methods previously only applied in some regions such as the ICES FBIT approach to benthic impact and marine litter models to new regions, thereby providing comparable results across large European areas. Maps of the distribution of fish and fisheries have been assembled for all regions and the likely effects of future environmental change investigated. The results show that the climate induced changes may be smaller than is often speculated. Increasing the extent of limiting habitats can potentially increase fish biomass and yield, thereby aiding in the rebuilding of fish stocks and social benefits of these.
Modelling fish stocks and their interactions revealed that the current management approach leads to suboptimal exploitation of the stocks from both a social and an ecological perspective. A more flexible approach may help decrease overexploitation where needed and increase catches of currently underexploited stocks. In general, trade-offs exist between social indicators of food supply, health benefits and economic income and ecological indicators measuring impact of fishing on the ecosystem.
SEAwise uses the indicators and fisheries models developed and advanced to provide the foundation for advice on economically effective and socially acceptable governance under climate change, productivity changes, and the Landing Obligation. Ecological indicators of environmental effects on fish stock productivity and effects of fishing on the ecosystem are modelled together with fishing impact. Ecosystem effects on fishing of environmental metrics, density dependence, predation, stock health indicators and habitat extent, is used to investigate the possible improvement of stock productivity predictions and fisheries yield. The effects of fishing on sensitive species, benthic habitats, food webs, biodiversity and litter estimated in the project will be used in the evaluation of the mutual consistency of objectives for ecological and social systems under different management strategies. Multispecies-multifleet models will provide ecosystem forecasts of the effect of fisheries management measures. The predictions will inform an online advice tool highlighting stock- and fisheries-specific social and ecological effects and management trade-offs.
The project contributes to the restoration and conservation of coastal and marine Social-Ecological Systems, whilst finding a compromise between maximising benefits to fisheries and minimising adverse effects throughout. Maximising society's readiness to implement new research knowledge from SEAwise is crucial in attaining the full impact of the scientific advice for consumers and policy makers produced in the project. For this reason, collaborative networks are an integral part of SEAwise, ensuring that results remain relevant, readily understandable and applicable to decision-making by policymakers, producers, influencers and consumers. The communication strategy targets dissemination activities to a variety of audiences, bringing significant benefits to public understanding, consumer behaviour and policy decisions. SEAwise results and products are reviewed by expert end users, ensuring co-construction and integration of comments.
The project contributes to the restoration and conservation of coastal and marine Social-Ecological Systems, whilst finding a compromise between maximising benefits to fisheries and minimising adverse effects throughout. Maximising society's readiness to implement new research knowledge from SEAwise is crucial in attaining the full impact of the scientific advice for consumers and policy makers produced in the project. For this reason, collaborative networks are an integral part of SEAwise, ensuring that results remain relevant, readily understandable and applicable to decision-making by policymakers, producers, influencers and consumers. The communication strategy targets dissemination activities to a variety of audiences, bringing significant benefits to public understanding, consumer behaviour and policy decisions. SEAwise results and products are reviewed by expert end users, ensuring co-construction and integration of comments.