Strategic Changes Result in Better Representation for Fishermen in SOCIOEC
26 July 2013
Austria
At the meeting, members of the consortium presented the progress of the activities carried out during the first half of the project and discussed the success of the new methodology adopted by project partners in the first half of the project.
Dr Ralf Döring, the project coordinator, said: “It has been a very productive meeting where the partners have had the opportunity to present their first results and share their experiences with others. We also discussed the crucial importance of developing a strong interaction between scientists and fishermen in the SOCIOEC project for it to be successful. Indeed, to reinforce this relationship, we decided to make slight changes to the methodology based on the results of the methodology workshop that we held in The Hague [The Netherlands, in October 2012].”
Leyre Goti, the Baltic Sea case study leader, explains the changes to the methodology, which involved organising focus groups and individual interviews to better understand fishermen’s problems and expectations relating to the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP): “Fishermen are hard workers and it can be difficult to get the right people to the right place, so instead of asking them come to us we went to them. As a result, the fishermen were more confident and comfortable sharing their opinions with the scientists on how the fisheries are managed as well as outlining their main concerns. Now that we have gathered the opinions of those who directly go to sea to work, we expect to have a stronger interaction with their representatives in the Regional Advisory Councils [RACs].”
Workshops are to be organised for the second half of the project, during which the consortium will start to present the project outputs and receive feedback from stakeholders. SOCIOEC is divided into six different case studies, based on the RACs into which European waters are divided. During the coming months, the SOCIOEC consortium also expects to start a series of SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) workshops at local case study level and to increase cooperation with the RACs, in collaboration with the related Myfish (Maximising Yield of Fisheries While Balancing Ecosystem, Economic and Social Concerns) project, which aims to develop new Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) indicators (www.myfishproject.eu)
SOCIOEC is an interdisciplinary project bringing fisheries economists, social scientists and biologists together with industry partners and other key stakeholders. The SOCIOEC project is working on solutions for future fisheries management that can be implemented at a regional level.
For more information visit the SOCIOEC webpage www.socioec.eu
Notes to Editors
The SOCIOEC consortium comprises 25 partners from 12 countries. The THÜNEN Institute of Sea Fisheries (TI-SF) is coordinating the project. AquaTT is the project dissemination partner. The project is funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological development (FP7/2007-2013) under the grant agreement n°289192. The project was launched in March 2012 and is expected to finish in February 2015.
Dr Ralf Dӧring, SOCIOEC coordinator, is leading the fisheries economics unit at vTI-SF and has worked mainly on the implementation of the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management plans and the evaluation of long term gains compared to short term costs.
Leyre Goty, SOCIOEC project officer and Baltic Sea case study leader, is a natural resources economist with a master’s degree in international economics from the Berlin School of Economics, Germany, and a bachelor’s degree in business administration and economic theory from the University of the Basque Country, Spain.
Detailed partner profiles are available on request.
For press queries, please contact the project communications officer: Federico Cardona Pons, AquaTT (email: federico@aquatt.ie Tel: +353 1 644 9008).
AquaTT staff members are available to respond to queries in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch.
Dr Ralf Döring, the project coordinator, said: “It has been a very productive meeting where the partners have had the opportunity to present their first results and share their experiences with others. We also discussed the crucial importance of developing a strong interaction between scientists and fishermen in the SOCIOEC project for it to be successful. Indeed, to reinforce this relationship, we decided to make slight changes to the methodology based on the results of the methodology workshop that we held in The Hague [The Netherlands, in October 2012].”
Leyre Goti, the Baltic Sea case study leader, explains the changes to the methodology, which involved organising focus groups and individual interviews to better understand fishermen’s problems and expectations relating to the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP): “Fishermen are hard workers and it can be difficult to get the right people to the right place, so instead of asking them come to us we went to them. As a result, the fishermen were more confident and comfortable sharing their opinions with the scientists on how the fisheries are managed as well as outlining their main concerns. Now that we have gathered the opinions of those who directly go to sea to work, we expect to have a stronger interaction with their representatives in the Regional Advisory Councils [RACs].”
Workshops are to be organised for the second half of the project, during which the consortium will start to present the project outputs and receive feedback from stakeholders. SOCIOEC is divided into six different case studies, based on the RACs into which European waters are divided. During the coming months, the SOCIOEC consortium also expects to start a series of SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) workshops at local case study level and to increase cooperation with the RACs, in collaboration with the related Myfish (Maximising Yield of Fisheries While Balancing Ecosystem, Economic and Social Concerns) project, which aims to develop new Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) indicators (www.myfishproject.eu)
SOCIOEC is an interdisciplinary project bringing fisheries economists, social scientists and biologists together with industry partners and other key stakeholders. The SOCIOEC project is working on solutions for future fisheries management that can be implemented at a regional level.
For more information visit the SOCIOEC webpage www.socioec.eu
Notes to Editors
The SOCIOEC consortium comprises 25 partners from 12 countries. The THÜNEN Institute of Sea Fisheries (TI-SF) is coordinating the project. AquaTT is the project dissemination partner. The project is funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological development (FP7/2007-2013) under the grant agreement n°289192. The project was launched in March 2012 and is expected to finish in February 2015.
Dr Ralf Dӧring, SOCIOEC coordinator, is leading the fisheries economics unit at vTI-SF and has worked mainly on the implementation of the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management plans and the evaluation of long term gains compared to short term costs.
Leyre Goty, SOCIOEC project officer and Baltic Sea case study leader, is a natural resources economist with a master’s degree in international economics from the Berlin School of Economics, Germany, and a bachelor’s degree in business administration and economic theory from the University of the Basque Country, Spain.
Detailed partner profiles are available on request.
For press queries, please contact the project communications officer: Federico Cardona Pons, AquaTT (email: federico@aquatt.ie Tel: +353 1 644 9008).
AquaTT staff members are available to respond to queries in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch.