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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PANDORA (Paradigm for Novel Dynamic Oceanic Resource Assessments)

Teaser

Summary

PANDORA addresses the most urgent needs of fisheries management and its various fleets in each of five Case Study areas to provide a step change in Europeâ€™s ability to support productive fisheries, boost employment and profits in the sector and promote European food security. PANDORA has assembled a multi-disciplinary team of oceanographers, biologists, economists, stock assessors, fishery advisors, industry and Regional Fisheries Management Organisations to create a step change in our ability to manage and increase the long-term profit from European fisheries resources. The specific objectives of PANDORA are:

1) Create more realistic assessments and projections of changes in fisheries resources (30 stocks, Table 1) by utilizing new biological knowledge (spatial patterns, environmental drivers, food- web interactions and density-dependence) including for the first time proprietary data sampled by fishers.

2) Advice on how to secure long-term sustainability of EU fish stocks (maximum sustainable/â€™pretty goodâ€™ and economic yields) and elucidate tradeoffs between profitability and number of jobs in their (mixed demersal, mixed pelagic and single species) fisheries fleets. Provide recommendations on how to stabilize the long term profitability of European fisheries.

3) Develop a public, internet-based resource tool box, including assessment modelling and stock projections code, economic models, and region- and species-specific decision support tools; increase ownership and contribution opportunities of the industry to the fish stock assessment process through involvement in data sampling and training in data collection, processing and ecosystem-based fisheries management.

Work performed

In order to efficiently scope regional management needs, informal dialogue in the form of face-to-face or virtual conversations among the project partners and with individuals in the existing regional stakeholder networks was combined with specific targeted questionnaire-survey. In the first project period alone, Pandora has organized 9 workshops and conferences and project participants took part in 53 events. To increase the efficiency of this survey, two separate questionnaires was designed and distributed; one for fishers/fisheries managers/policy- and decision-makers/NGOs in the Case Study regions focusing on biological/ecological developments and management practices and second one for stock assessment scientists focusing on the stock assessment process. The outcome of the regional scoping clearly showed that the â€˜maturityâ€™ of the management framework and underlying stock-assessments in the region had an impact on the views of what need to be improved; in the Mediterranean quality and quantity of input information was a concern as well as the ability of a spatial-effort quota system management to govern the fishery. For the Bay of Biscay and North Sea the PANDORA toolbox was envisaged to be flexible allowing experts to actively integrate developments and increasing advanced tools for e.g. reference point determination and management strategy evaluations. The Baltic Sea needs a better understanding of the mixed fisheries as well as the environmental impact on the stocks, the fishery and the food-web structure.

Work in the case studies so far has focused on gaining new knowledge from existing data, as well as revising existing assessment methods where possible, and developing new ones where necessary.

For the Mediterranean case study, knowledge has been assimilated om red mullet and deepwater pink shrimp biology and fisheries. Regarding demersal species, the process knowledge and data revised for future tasks within the project are: connectivity issues, density-dependent and independent effects on recruits and juvenile survival. For the Baltic Sea case study, the spatial trends of cod liver parasite have been and new stomach data were compiled to estimate food ration of cod and its diet composition. In the North Sea case study, the stock/spatial structure of commercially important North Sea stocks has been reviewed. In the Bay of Biscay , a blackspot seabream an acoustic survey was designed and carried out in collaboration with fishers and an online questionnaire survey of sport divers was carried out to identify the habitat of juveniles. In the Northwestern Shelf Sea case, we implemented a pilot self-sampling programme for the Scottish pelagic fleet. Initially, 7 vessels were recruited (on a voluntary basis) to participate, with 10 now participating, and more expected to join the programme in the coming months. The economic work in Pandora has focused on the development of a hybrid scheme that will be employed to achieve improvements of welfare outcomes under Pretty Good Yield policies.

Final results

PANDORA will deliver a readily implementable open-access tool box that updates current assessment models incorporating key biological knowledge, resolving the diversity of challenges identified in the European fisheries. The PANDORA legacy tool box will be made publically available and its application taught in courses to end-users. The first applications, publications, course material and data for the toolbox have already been developed. At the 2020 Grand Assembly, the structure of the tool-box will be discussed and prepared to be made available online.

PANDORA will ensure full exploitation of fisheries resources through implementation of dynamic and responsive reference points. This way, ensuring sustainability of the fishing industry promoting a long-term stabilized sector that enhances the number of jobs indirectly associated and expanding on new fisheries resources. Already from the start of the project, PANDORA experts will in collaboration with the industry successively introduce PANDORA results in relevant expert groups and management fora. Pandora has actively developed advice, for example on natural mortality rates of Baltic herring and sprat. PANDORA experts have been present in all regional assessment working groups.

PANDORA aims to safeguard sustainable marine food systems that improve bioregional economies, and diminish the ecological footprint of fishing by increasing the prediction capability of stock projections and maximise the uptake of project results via participation in expert groups and training. With Pandora\'s tool box, management will be more accurate and will ensure a more manageable and predictable supply of seafood from our seas and oceans. The project will help decision makers define their priorities based on the best possible science, accounting for the complexity of fish stocksâ€™ and fisheriesâ€™ interactions. Cost benefit analyses in the economic work package have commenced and will be applied in all case studies. These considerations will be combined with the classical, biomass-related fisheries management.

Courses will be given, a repository of training manuals will be created, open-source codes will be shared and training in decision-making will be provided. The courses will be advertised broadly and designed to guarantee wide participation. Financial support will be granted within the project for relevant participants, e.g. fishers, that otherwise could not take part. The first courses have been held. The course plan has been developed. Especially the self-sampling initiative from the industrial partners on PANDORA has shown to perform better than expected, because interest of fishers is very high.