The end of the Human Exclusion Experiment

As part of her PhD and in line with CLOCK , Alba aims to find suitable adaptation options for the barnacle fishery to compensate the impacts of climate change. As part of her project, and under the umbrella of PERCEBES, Alba has participated for the last 2 years in an experiment set to understand the effects of harvesting on the productivity of the barnacle stands. For this, 6 closed cages were installed at 3 sites in Galicia (NW Spain) in two different phases (July 2017 and July 2018) to cover the rocks and thus, exclude removal by fishers. In Brittany (France), Alentejo (Portugal) and Asturias (N Spain, coordinators of the project) the same protocol and timing has been conducted. Next week the experiment will come to an end in all regions.

Since the start of the experiment, monthly photos of the experimental surfaces have been taken for community analysis to understand the resource recovery dynamics. Besides the exclusion treatments, open plots where harvesters work have also been photographed for later comparison. Photo analysis has already started and will continue during next months to present our results to stakeholders at the February 2020 meeting. Despiste occasional poaching and the removal of cages by winter storms, the experiment has been doing great at all European sites and from FOL we thank the fishers, guards, technical assistants and managers that have collaborated to make it possible!