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Monitoring and elimination of bycatch of endangered and conserved species in the NE and high seas Atlantic region

Project description

Reducing by-catch of endangered marine species

Bycatch refers to the accidental capture of non-target marine animals during fishing, posing a significant threat to marine species worldwide. This threat is particularly severe for protected, endangered, and threatened species (PETS). However, there has been limited progress in fully understanding the risks to PETS, and there is a need for further advancement in approaches to reduce these risks. These challenges impede Member States from significantly reducing bycatch. The EU-funded Marine Beacon project aims to diminish by-catch risk in the Atlantic by identifying knowledge gaps and adopting innovative approaches to develop next-generation monitoring and mitigation tools. The project will engage stakeholders to generate the best solutions and decision-support tools for long-term impact.

Objective

Bycatch, the unintentional capture of non-target marine animals during fishing, is considered one of the greatest threats to marine species globally. This threat is particularly significant for protected, endangered and threatened species (PETS), including marine mammals, seabirds, turtles and sensitive fish species, with their bycatch threatening marine ecosystem health. While bycatch of PETS is recognized as a significant issue, advances in fully understanding risks to PETS have been limited, due to current inability to effectively monitor wide ranging, highly mobile and cryptic species. There has been further lack in advancement in approaches to reduce such risks. These issues all hinder Member States ability to eliminate and significantly reduce bycatch. MarineBeacon will respond to these challenges, working across a regional seas scale to identifying where significant gaps in understanding lie, and adopt innovative approaches to produce the knowledge and tools to better understand bycatch risk and vulnerability. Next generation monitoring tools will be produced and developed to improve understanding of the distribution and abundance of PETS in addition to the levels in which they interact with fisheries. Cutting-edge mitigation tools and techniques will then be extensively tested across diverse fisheries and regions to ensure transferable outputs are generated to significantly mitigate against bycatch risk. MarineBeacon will facilitate the uptake and adoption of its targeted outputs by policy, management, and industry by adopting a stakeholder centered approach, engaging and collaborating with stakeholder throughout the project to producing best acceptable solutions. Importantly, MarineBeacon will ensure long-term applicability and impact of outputs beyond the lifetime of the project through the production of a suite of decision support tools to ensure all measures to better monitor PETS and mitigate against bycatch risk are effectively targeted.

Coordinator

MARINE INSTITUTE
Net EU contribution
€ 947 627,50
Address
RINVILLE ORANMORE
H91 R673 Galway
Ireland

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Region
Ireland Northern and Western West
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
€ 947 627,50

Participants (19)

Partners (1)