A Science-policy workshop to inform the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) staff, about recent progress achieved in the framework of Life iSEAS, MINOUW and DiscardLess projects, took place in the EFCA Headquarters (Vigo) on the 2nd February 2017. This event was organized in the frame of the initiatives carried out by Life iSEAS (networking actions) and COLUMBUS project, which aim is to ensure that applicable knowledge generated through EC-funded marine and maritime science and technology research can be transferred to different end-users.
EFCA representatives presented the different activities they are developing to assists the EC, MS and fisheries stakeholders for a uniform implementation of the CFP and support the implementation of the landing obligation
The three projects above-mentioned present presented an overview of the initiatives they are carried out in the frame of the discards problem:
– Recent research progress about the problem of discards: motivations, data, etc,
– Technologies and strategies to reduce and avoid discards,
– Management, handling and use of the unwanted catch,
The final objective of the meeting is to facilitate dialogue between on-going research and innovation projects at European level aiming to tackle the different challenges around avoiding the fishing discards and applying the current regulations to this regard. In addition, this event was an opportunity to identify specific areas for further collaboration bewteen EFCA, Life iSEAS, DiscardLess and MINOUW (with knowledge transfer support from COLUMBUS).