Fishers, policy makers and NGOs talk about PERCEBES

PERCEBES aims to provide ecological, genetical and socioeconomic information about the stalked barnacle fishery to promote a sustainable extraction of the resource across the South of Europe. As a way to promote an effective interaction between research and policy, the project organized a stakeholders meeting with fishers, administration officers, NGOs and researchers. The workshop took place on January 24th and 25th in Cudillero (Asturias, N of Spain). During the workshop the preliminar results of the project were discussed.

FOL member Alba Aguión presented her work on the current management practices for the fishery in Europe – a piece of work presented in the International Small-scale Fisheries Congress 2018 in Thailand. As stakeholders came from different places of France, Portugal and Spain a very fruitful discussion arised about effective vs. unsuitable management tools for the fishery. The different areas shared their learning-by-doing experiences and concerns, sharing their contacts and thus creating a big network for future discussion. Another hot topics during the meeting were the level of connectivity among regions (larval dispersal model) and the recovery time for the barnacle stands after human exploitation. Back in Vigo we thank all the participants, the University of Oviedo (coordinator of the meeting) and the organizers (WWF, Altekio) for such a great experience!