Knowing first hand Galician fisheries

After spending a lot of time working remotely from home and doing shifts at the lab, at the end of October, new members of Future Oceans Lab joined Elena to visit the Cambados Fisher Guild, and learned first hand about small-scale fisheries (SSF) management. This cofradía is the oldest fisher guild in Spain, and is located in Ría de Arousa, one of the main shellfish beds in Galicia (Spain). SSF provides an important source of food and livelihoods but both are now threatened by climate change. For that reason, FOL is working on smart adaptation solutions to face climate change impacts on fisheries applying large set of social and natural sciences methodologies, contributing to CIM interdisciplinary groups on marine research.

Shellfish gathering women in Cambados are organised in the San Antonio Fishers’ Association, with 900 members, and some of them take part of Guimatur, a cultural association which works to spread the Galician fishing culture and the traditional values of sea work. On this occasion, our team met  Mª José, a Guimatur shellfisher who led the special visit in which Smit, Juan and Marian had the chance to know first hand the SSF in Galicia. Here, there is a strong presence of women, dedicated mainly to shell-fishing on foot. This visit to the shoals of Cambados can be seen as an example of fisheries diversification which can provide additional incomes and jobs to fishing communities.

Talking once more with shellfish harvesters gave us a deeper understanding on how the guilds work, and we certainly feel very inspired to keep advancing on how will shifting stocks affect Galician Artisanal fisheries under Climate Change.

We enjoyed been on the field again.