Abstract
Aiming to end the practice of discarding unwanted catches back to the sea within European marine waters, an obligation to land the catches of all regulated commercial species was introduced with the Common Fisheries Policy by the first of January 2019. The implementation of this new fisheries regulation urges the definition of standard monitoring protocols to track potential changes in the fishery system. Importantly, this framework needs to be multi-dimensional to capture the ecological, social and economic components of the system. Aiming to address this challenge, a set of 39 candidate indicators were identified by means of literature review and expert consultation. Experts in European fisheries gathered to discuss the selection of a restricted set of indicators to understand changes in fishery systems resulting from the implementation of the landing obligation (LO). A survey was completed by the experts to assess the adequacy of the indicators against pre-defined quality criteria and to identify expected direction of change. Based on survey results, the 39 indicators were ranked according to their adequacy for the monitoring of the LO potential effects. This ranking was dominated by indicators related to the exploited species. Because the LO is not yet fully implemented, experts expressed uncertainty in the properties of many indicators, particularly of ecosystem and social indicators. The feasibility to operationalise a monitoring framework with the prioritised indicators was explored with data from a Spanish demersal otter-trawl fishery, an exercise that evidenced that most indicators could be collected and that it would be feasible to track these variables over time in the framework of a monitoring program.
Highlights
The landing obligation (LO) within European marine waters seeks to end the wasteful practice of discarding unwanted catches (UWC), i.e., the fraction of the catch that is not landed due to quotas, to minimum conservation reference sizes, or to market demand, and is the result of imperfect fisheries selectivity, legislation restrictions and market incentives which are specific to each type of fishery (STECF/SGMOS, 2008; Pérez-Roda, 2019)
It is likely that the LO will have less impact on fishing practices in which discards are driven by market rather than by regulatory provisions (Catchpole et al, 2013), while a number of factors have a synergistic effect on discard patterns which are sometimes difficult to disentangle and capture (Stithou et al, 2019)
Some changes are expected to be negative in the short term, such as the anticipated reduction in commercial landings, which is not expected to be compensated by the sale of UWC for industrial purposes (Christou et al, 2019), but some mid to long term ecosystem benefits could be expected if the implementation of the LO leads to more selective fishing practices (Guillen et al, 2018)
Summary
The landing obligation (LO) within European marine waters seeks to end the wasteful practice of discarding unwanted catches (UWC), i.e., the fraction of the catch that is not landed due to quotas, to minimum conservation reference sizes, or to market demand, and is the result of imperfect fisheries selectivity, legislation restrictions and market incentives which are specific to each type of fishery (STECF/SGMOS, 2008; Pérez-Roda, 2019). The LO in Mediterranean fisheries, concerns key species for which the use of captured individuals below the minimum conservation reference size shall be restricted to purposes other than direct human consumption. The LO in Mediterranean fisheries, concerns key species for which the use of captured individuals below the minimum conservation reference size shall be restricted to purposes other than direct human consumption1 Those not covered by the LO can continue to be discarded, while prohibited species [i.e., species that are protected by the national or European legislation/Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)] should be returned immediately back to the sea (EU, 2013). Experts were asked to express how certain they were in their answers (in a scale from 0: 0% to 4: 100%) The experts provided their opinions on the potential magnitude and direction of change of each indicator, assuming a full implementation of the LO (Supplementary Table 2)
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