Better cooperation and communication between fishermen, fishery administrators and researchers
Dutch fisherman, fishery administrators and researchers have been working together on the F project (2002-2007). “F” stands for fishery mortality or fishery pressure. The aim of the project is to improve the management of the bottom trawl fishery for flatfish, especially plaice and sole, on the North Sea.
This improvement must result from:
- More reliable estimates of the fish stocks and fishery pressure;
- Increased and more efficient use of fishery data;
- Improved and more substantive communication between the three parties.
Around the year 2000, the legitimacy of fishery management began to erode because the fishery sector had great difficulty in making the sometimes large updates to the estimates for fish stocks (downwards) and fishery mortality F (upwards). This applied especially to plaice and cod. The fluctuations in the fish stock estimates did not correspond with the steadier image that the fishermen held of the developments in the fish stocks based on their catch success. This led to a worsening of the communication between the sector and the researchers, where the fishermen held the researchers responsible for the quality of the management. The F-project was given the assignment of helping to improve the situation by seeing where the fish stock estimates could be enhanced, how information from the fishery could be taken into account more effectively and how the communication between the parties could be improved.
Download:
» Poster: Het vangstsucces als maat voor de visstand (in dutch)
» Posters: F-project (2006) en F-project (2002) (in dutch)
» Report: 5 jaar F-project (nr. C057/07) (in dutch)
» Report: 5 years of F-project: a final report (no. C058/07)
This project was financed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, Fisheries Directorate. The parties cooperating in the project included the Product Board for Fish, the Federation of Fishery Associations, the Netherlands Fisherman’s Union and individual fishermen.