“Interviews underway and collaborations strengthened through talks with the Regional Council of the Veneto Region, the vice Mayor of the city of Chioggia and the Lega-coop”
There have been 18 meetings with fishermen and other stakeholders, covering planning sessions, institutional collaborations and specific research actions. In April, ISPRA, UNIMAR (the stakeholder partner of the CS) and the RACMED met on two occasions to discuss modes for collaboration and to plan the collection of available data that will be integrated with those collected by ISPRA in the next months.
In July 2011, researchers of the National Research Council of Ancona (Italy) introduced a tool to ISPRA members for the on-board collection of fishery and oceanographic data. Through collaboration with CNR, a similar tool will be used in the framework of GAP 2 to monitor the spatio-temporal distribution of fishing effort and biological resources.
Establishing dialogue between GAP2 scientists and local institutions involved in fisheries management in the region, and representing societies fisheries interests, included discussions with members of the Regional Council of the Veneto Region, the vice Mayor of the city of Chioggia (responsible of the fishery office of Chioggia). To strengthen the collaboration in GAP2, a meeting with a representative of Lega-coop (the fishermen organization of Chioggia) was carried out to establish with a formal agreement for collaboration.
Five meetings were held with local fishermen (Chioggia’s fishing fleet) to re-establish collaboration in the research plan together the activities, and discuss their feasibility with fishermen. Some ecological topics regarding changes in the marine ecosystem and fish populations were discussed and information on the EU CFP Reform were given to fishermen. Fishermen were also invited to collaborate in the implementation of the interviews protocols, and provide data and information on their activities. At the last meeting, the adoption of electronic logbook on board of fishing vessel was discussed with fishermen and they expressed their willingness to collaborate by using the logbooks to record fishing activity. Discussions also covered management strategies and fishers expectations for the future of fishery in the Northern Adriatic Sea.
Semi-structured interviews and habitat mapping were started with good collaboration from fishers. All interviews were recorded with the permission of the fishers and some refinements to the interviews have been made. Interviews have focused on the development of fishing capacity and effort and on ecological information on the Adriatic ecosystem, with 6 fishermen belonging to different métiers having been interviewed so far.
