Focusing on the Baltic and North Sea, and alongside two sister projects for the Arctic–Atlantic and Mediterranean, the EU multi-stakeholder project ECO-CATCH will over the next five years play a key part in helping both marine ecosystems and fisheries in Europe to thrive.
The ECO-CATCH team are leading scientists, industry innovators, and certification bodies brought together by the funding by the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), and led by Dr. Valentina Melli and Dr. Lotte Kindt-Larsen at DTU Aqua.
“ECO-CATCH is about turning scientific innovation into real-world solutions for Europe’s seas, fishers, and communities. By working across the value chain, we can deliver technologies and business models that make sustainable fishing the new standard,” says Dr. Valentina Melli.
The aim of ECO-CATCH is to turn 10 promising innovations for protecting habitats and minimizing bycatch of juvenile fishes and endangered, threatened, and protected species into ready-to-use commercial technologies made to enhance the sustainability of fleets and thereby support their access to premium seafood markets.
Avoiding Vulnerable Habitats and Areas of High Bycatch Risk
Collectively, these technologies will boost the ability of fishers to avoid vulnerable habitats and areas of high bycatch risk, and provide more selective or alternative gear to minimize the capture of juvenile fish such as cod and Endangered, Threatened, and Protected (ETP) species such as porpoises.
This includes wheelhouse visualizers to guide skippers to areas where they can fish efficiently without damaging habitat or catching non-target species, modifying trawls to make them easier for cod to escape from, progressing the new “MicroSeine” gear for small-scale demersal fishers, and developing alternative gear such as seal-proof pots.
The last phase of the project will focus on demonstrating the viability of these technologies in commercial fishing conditions, addressing legal and social barriers to their adoption, and enabling them to be recognized in certification assessments.
Fishers are vital to ECO-CATCH
Fishers are vital to the efforts of ECO-CATCH and other initiatives. They can help spot and flag changes to the environment and populations of fish and other marine animals, and they can play an important role in developing, trialing, and adopting innovations.
New low-impact fishing technologies are urgently needed for nature and people and will only be possible through collaboration between the fishing industry, researchers, seafood businesses, certification schemes, and policymakers.
The innovations to be developed within ECO-CATCH will contribute to shape a future in which both coastal fishing communities and marine ecosystems should be resilient and capable of flourishing again.
Also, the consortium’s strong track record in government advisory work will enable project outputs to feed into long-term policy and industry standards.
Expertise from across the European fisheries value chain
ECO-CATCH unites expertise from across the European fisheries value chain, including research and development institutions, small to medium companies, fish producer associations, seafood suppliers, and certification labels.
Alongside the Technical University of Denmark, partners include the Institute of Marine Research (Norway), the Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Belgium), the Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute (Germany), the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Anchor Lab (Denmark), Espersen (Denmark), Egersund Group (Norway), the Electronic Fish Information Centre Europe (the Netherlands), Atlas Maridan (Denmark), the Marine Stewardship Council (UK), the International Seafood Consulting Group (Finland), the Good Fish Guide (Luxembourg), the European Association of Fish Producers Organisations (Belgium) and Mindfully Wired (UK).
Kick-off in DTU Aqua Hirtshals location for fisheries technology
Over three days in late June, team members from across the consortium converged on DTU Aqua’s Hirtshals Campus for the kick-off meeting to make and strengthen connections, discuss the project’s objectives and ambitions, horizon-scan for opportunities and challenges, and prepare for the months and years of fruitful work to come.
Participants also had the unique opportunity to see fisheries research and development in action as the kickoff took place in DTU Aqua location for fisheries technology in Hirtshals in the North Sea Science Park.
Here, among other things, the team payed a visit to the Flume Tank, the world’s second-largest tank designed for testing fishing gear and other underwater technologies. And they met representatives of some of the marine species that the project seeks to conserve at the neighbouring Nordsøen Oceanarium.
“It was amazing having the partners together in the same room and sharing their wishes for change and collaboration. Everyone is making the effort and positive engagement to make ECO-CATCH fly!” says Dr. Lotte Kindt-Larsen, the project’s other coordinator.