The undersecretary of Marine Affairs of ??Galicia, Rosa Quintana, yesterday at CETMAR, in Bouzas, presented the FarFish research project, which aims to improve the management of fisheries in international waters and ensure the profitability and sustainability of the community fleet that operates outside the European Union.
The project, which involves 21 partners, has a budget of EUR 5 million. It will be developed over a four-year period (2017-2021) and will include case studies in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, which will make it possible to work with the tuna, shrimp, octopus, hake and sardine fisheries.
The project will seek to improve data collection, develop decision-making support tools and models that serve as a basis for developing management plans.
FarFish has nine European research centres and universities – from Norway and Iceland – along with partners from Brazil, Cape Verde, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal and the Seychelles.
Fisheries in international waters with which cooperation agreements are established may benefit from the FarFish project, since it will work to establish management criteria in these waters. The European Commission hopes that the results of FarFish will contribute to the debate on foreign policy for the forthcoming Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform negotiations, which are likely to start in 2020.
The project is led by the Irish centre Matís, with the collaboration of CETMAR, the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), the Organization of Fresh Producers of the Port and Ría de Marín (OPROMAR) and ANFACO.
In a first stage, the project will focus on research into the biological, ecological, economic and social factors that are relevant to EU fisheries in the study areas.
The second will seek to provide guidelines for the development of management plans for these fleets fishing on the basis of sustainable fisheries agreements and in international waters.
The final part of the project will focus on the release, transfer of knowledge and capacity building among the different stakeholders interested in and affected by these fisheries and international water agreements.
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