This report considers how and whether to increase levels of linkages between EU fleets operating under Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements with African countries, how to make sectoral support more effective, and the role that donors can play in supporting these objectives.
A Poseidon director was part of an international team evaluating FAO's contribution to Sustainable Development Goal 14, Life Below Water. FAO's contribution to SDG14 across many of its work areas is substantial and has made a significant impact. The evaluation team did, however, identify areas for improvement. FAO's management team has accepted the team's recommendations and is taking action. A short video about the evaluation can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaNcHrCPaOA
This report for the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) explored the value, markets and research funding of Antarctic krill and the fishery targeting this resource. ASOC presented the report to CCAMLR, recommending a funding strategy for future krill research.
This research for Oceana in association with China Ocean Institute, Diatom Consulting, and the University of Santiago de Campostela, investigated the volume and values of the global blue shark fishery. We estimated that around 190,000t of blue shark, worth as much as USD 411 million in 2019 (more than Atlantic blue fin tuna). Blue shark is not just tuna bycatch, but an important fishery in its own right that needs to be better managed.
This report provides the 2023 update of the IUU Fishing Risk Index. It highlights country, region and ocean basin performance, and explains changes in performance since the last update in 2021
The report summarises the findings from the 2021 update of the IUU Fishing Index, highlighting the performance of different countries and changes since the Index was launched in 2019
Poseidon staff led a team of FAO consultants to design a value chain upgrading strategy for the Gambia oyster value chain
This report provides global estimates of reported volumes and values of transshipments of tuna and tuna-like species.
Poseidon completed a mid term review of the regional fisheries governance project, PESCAO. The evaluation provided evidenced-based findings, conclusions and recommendations to improve project implementation and increase the chances of achieving the project's objectives before completion.
This presentation was made to the Coastal Futures conference in January 2021. It provides some thoughts on the opportunities, benefits and barriers to developing offshore aquaculture in England, including working with other sectors.
The English Aquaculture Strategy was prepared by Poseidon in late 2020. Published by Seafood 2040, this provides a strategy for the sustainable development of the aquaculture sector in England over the next 20 years. It provides an in-depth report which includes a review of the English aquaculture landscape and current barriers to growth, along with the rationale and methodology behind the Strategy.
This report examines the environmental and economic impact of fish aggregation devices on Pacific Island coastal habitats.
This third update of FAO’s global discard estimate adopted the ‘fishery-by-fishery’ approach employed in the second discards assessment published in 2005. The update included publicly available discard data in the last 20 years to establish a baseline of a time series of global marine fisheries discards. This is essential for monitoring the status and trends of discard management, which is the first step of the ecosystem approach to fisheries management cycle. In addition, the study developed a new fisheries data table incorporating landings data from the FAO Global Capture Production dataset (FishStat J) from 2010 to 2014, which allocated the landings to over 2 000 fisheries worldwide.
This paper presents the findings of a review of programme evaluation reports of fisheries/aquaculture development assistance. Evaluations were reviewed so as to answer a number of research questions related to the quality of the evaluations themselves, the impacts and outcomes of development assistance (both positive and negative, intended and unintended), and the causes for these impacts and outcomes
This Poseidon report was commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts as part of its on-going campaign to end overfishing in the waters of north-western Europe. The research finds that more than half of TACs are consistently set at levels above scientific advice. Projections show this trend continuing to 2020, clear contravention of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) goal to end overfishing. In addition, shortcomings identified within the report demonstrate that current biomass reference points are inadequate to measure progress towards the CFP objective to restore and maintain fish stocks above levels that support the maximum sustainable yield.
Poseidon led a multi-disciplinary team to evaluate EUR 1.6 billion of funding support provided by the EU under Council Regulation (EC) No 861/2006. The scope of the evaluation covered funding to four ‘thematic areas’: Fisheries Partnership Agreements (FPAs); voluntary contributions to international organisations; data collection and scientific advice; and control and enforcement.
This Poseidon report was commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts as part of its ongoing campaign to end overfishing in the waters of north-western Europe. The European Union Common Fisheries Policy has committed to ensuring fishing occurs at sustainable levels – the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) – by 2015 where possible and for all stocks by 2020. This report highlights examples where fisheries management has worked to end overfishing, and showcases the resulting benefits, using a case study approach for five fish stocks: haddock in the North Sea, plaice in the Eastern English Channel, horse mackerel in Atlantic Iberian waters, herring in the North Sea, and nephrops in Skagerrak and Kattegat. These examples show that well-managed fisheries lead to healthy fish stocks and result in a cascade of positive outcomes, including increased income to fishers and reduced impacts on the wider environment. Other benefits relate to improved efficiency: as fish stocks recover from overfishing, the time and fishing effort required to catch the same amount of fish (catch per unit effort [CPUE]) reduces.
This report provides estimates of the global value of tuna sales for 2012 and 2014. Estimations are provided for both the ex-vessel first sale values, and for final consumed values.
The report Covers a detailed description of electronic fisheries information systems (EFIS) and assess the rationale for their application in the Western Pacific and investigates and analyses existing legislation to identify key legal and regulatory considerations relevant to the implementation of Electronic Monitoring (EM) and Electronic Reporting (ER) into national fisheries policy and legislation. This provides an analysis that governments can use to support and inform the update of national fisheries policy and legislation to incorporate EM and ER. The report also identifies the costs and benefits of each system and investigates and documents potential (and realistic) cost-recovery solutions for ER and EM that could be adopted by FFA member countries (noting that this work may be included/linked to a broader cost-recovery study).
In 2009, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) adopted the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing (PSMA). Countries that ratify the treaty commit to exert greater control at ports over foreign-flagged vessels to detect IUU catch before it is offloaded from vessels, and prevent the ill-gotten catch from entering the world’s markets. The PSMA, when effectively implemented globally, will be a major deterrent to IUU fishing. A major challenge to selecting ports for enhanced controls has been the lack of data on which ports are the world’s largest or busiest. There is no global ranking of major fishing ports of any kind, so the goal of this work was to identify, rank and characterize the world’s ports for the purpose of assessing what the impact the PSMA could have at the country level. This list of the top 100 ports by landed tonnage is one of the first of its kind to be published as a single consolidated dataset, and it is intended as a starting point in the further assessment of activity in the world’s fishing ports. This report was conducted with the financial support of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Poseidon led a European team to produce a scoping study for the European Investment Bank (EIB). The study explored experiences with the development of Financial Instruments under European structural funds. Future development of FIs under the EMFF may be in collaboration with larger funds and assisted through a range of supporting actions by the EIB's fi-compass (www.fi-compass.eu) .
This study examined the implementation difficultires associated with days at sea / effort restrictions management systems as applied to a series of fisheries in the EU North Atlantic.
This presentation, given ay the MSC FIP workshop in Bali, provides an outline of the Fisheries Improvement Plan design framework based on the lessons learned from applying these actions to fisheries in South East Asia. The work is based on FIP design to transboundary tuna stocks and their dependent fisheries, as well as fishery specific single zone fisheries such as reef fish, blue swimming crab and prawn trawl. The presentation also provides some insights into critical do's and don'ts
Blue Growth is the long-term strategy to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors as a whole. It is the maritime contribution to achieving the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Poseidon was part of a consortium that produced Blue Growth strategies for Europe’s sea basins.
The reformed CFP includes an obligation not to discard and to land the fish that is caught. This Landing Obligation is to be phased in from 2015 through to 2019. Poseidon is involved with government and industry initiatives to determine strategies to apply this regulation and to minimize the economic impact to the industry. This report prepared for a UK multi-stakeholder group, the Discard Action Group, considers the impact on three case study fisheries. This was expanded as part of Seafish’s Economic Impact Assessment of the Landing Obligation on the UK fisheries sector.
Poseidon led a team undertaking a counterfactual evaluation of European funding for permanent (scrapping) and temporary (tie-up) cessation schemes. Extensive skipper surveys and interviews throughout Member States enabled a detailed analysis of the impact of such schemes, leading to revised funding criteria for 2014-2020.
Marine Scotland commissioned Poseidon to undertake a review of Scottish scallop fisheries in terms of their current assessment, management and environmental impact. The report made a range of recommendations that formed the basis for a public consultation to improve the management of scallop fisheries in Scottish waters.
Policy-making can be defined as ‘the process by which governments translate their political vision into programmes and actions to deliver outcomes’. A solid, well-grounded and robust policy aquaculture framework is required as a basis for sustainable development and its contribution to food security and economic growth. A policy provides the well-considered sectoral goal and objectives that are essential for subsequent strategy and development planning. To date aquaculture development in the Pacific Island region has largely occurred in a policy vacuum, and that this has undoubtedly contributed to the sector’s slow and uncertain growth since its inception after the Second World War. The purpose of this study was therefore to evaluate the policy-making needs of the 15 ACP countries in the Pacific Region and to provide a set of practical guidelines for developing an aquaculture policy framework. The study was implemented by the ACP Fish II Programme with European Union (EU) funding. Tim Huntington, a Poseidon Director, was the team leader and one of two key authors.
EU aquaculture production has tripled since 1980 and now represents a important source of seafood for the European market. In some regions, however, aquaculture has a poor public image and is facing criticism for its negative environmental effects. There is an increasing overlap between marine aquaculture production areas and the protected nature sites of the Natura 2000 network. The Community is committed to this network of sites for certain wild birds, animals and plants, and a range of habitat types. This report has led to a better understanding of the interactions between different farming systems and the species / habitat complexes in their vicinity and assessed the often apparently conflicting goals of aquaculture development and nature conservation in order to identify common aims and policy objectives. The report has generated a framework for a practical ‘Code of Practice’ for use by marine aquaculture operators and regulatory authorities, which has been widely adopted.
This report, prepared under the FFA Devfish II programme, examines the stock status of species targeted in the south Pacific sub tropical longline fishery, the economic performance of the fleets and licence fee structures, and strategic trading constraints and opportunities. Strategic and collective development priorities are proposed for the four Melanesian countries: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
This report examines the institutional development needs for fisheries administrations in 10 SE Asian/Australasian countries. The focus of the work covers: the main internal and external drivers; the main challenges; a review of current capacity for fisheries management, policy and planning, science and economics research and MCS; the collective regional vision and objectives for strengthening institutional reform; and appropriate delivery mechanisms.
This report provides a regional analysis of tuna fisheries situation in the Western Central Pacific as background to work Poseidon completed for DG MARE on ex ante and ex post evaluations of fisheries partnership agreements in the region. The report profiles: environmental ocean characteristics; catches by fleets and gear type; management and conservation arrangements; stock status; access arrangements for distant water fishing vessels; vessel numbers; and product flows to market.
This report focuses on the likely impact of climate change on the trade and competitiveness of the fisheries sector in small developing Commonwealth States and thus contributes to bringing the fisheries sector into a more central role in policy discussion on climate change. The report: describes the physical and chemical changes in oceans, lakes and rivers, and resulting impacts on ecosystems and on fish populations; considers the types of impacts of climate change on the fisheries sector, and more widely in national economies; assess the vulnerability of small developing Commonwealth States to the impacts of climate change; and provides case studies of Kenya, Maldives and the Solomon Islands. The report concludes by considering the linkages between a) climate change and trade competitiveness and b) climate change and fisheries trade policy supportive of enhanced/maintained trade and competitiveness in Commonwealth States.
Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) is a problem that is increasingly of concern. This report reviews the magnitude and composition of ALDFG and its impacts. The factors which cause fishing gear to be abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded are also analysed, before reviewing a variety of measures currently in place to reduce ALDFG. The report concludes with a number of recommendations for future action to reduce ALDFG debris, and considers at what scale and which stakeholders might be best placed to address the wide range of possible measures to reduce the amount of ALDFG debris.
The SWIOFP was a $23 million project for Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Reunion, Tanzania, Seychelles, South Africa, with an objective ‘To promote the environmentally sustainable use of fish resources through adoption by countries riparian to the Southwest Indian Ocean of a Large Marine Ecosystem (LME)-based approach to fisheries management in the Agulhas and Somali LMEs that recognizes the importance of preserving biodiversity.’ This was to be achieved through identification and study of offshore non-tuna species and their exploitation within the South West Indian Ocean, development of institutional and human capacity for both fisheries science and management, development of fisheries management plans at both national and, where appropriate, regional levels, and mainstreaming biodiversity in fisheries management, policy and legislation. The report provides a final project evaluation and reports on factors affecting implementation, performance in terms of project outcomes, and key lessons learned.
This report provides an ex post and an ex ante evaluation of the Protocol to the Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA) between the EU, and the Government of Denmark and the Home Rule Government of Greenland. The report provides background information on Greenland, reviews fisheries governance arrangements, assesses fisheries resources and their status, profiles the domestic fisheries sector and the activities of other fleets in Greenland, and considers fish trade. It then provides both an ex post evaluation of the existing Protocol, and ex ante evaluation of a renewal of the Protocol, subject to number of recommendations for improvements.
Despite the fact that the aquaculture sector in Egypt is a mature one having developed over a period of more than 30 years and producing close to a million tonnes a year, the economic performance of the sector was not well understood or documented prior to this report. To improve knowledge, Poseidon staff developed a methodology for, and conducted a value-chain study for the sector, leading and working with a team of 8 researchers from the WorldFish Center in Egypt. The study focused on four of the most important governorates in terms of aquaculture production: Kafr el Sheikh, Behera, Sharkia, and Fayoum. Individual interviews and focus group discussions with fish farmers, traders/wholesalers, and retailers, were used to collect quantitative and qualitative information about financial performance, employment creation, and the critical factors impacting on the performance of each sub-sector of the value-chain. The report was subsequently written up and accepted as a paper for publication in the peer reviewed journal, Aquaculture.
This report identifies and explores the critical problems found in tropical shrimp trawl fisheries and their causes, and based on examples of best practice and potential solutions creates a generic “blueprint” which can support a transition of such fisheries to more sustainable practices. The generic blueprint is intended for adaptation through stakeholder consultation and workshops in different countries to reflect country-specific needs, and to result in country- or fisheries-specific shrimp trawl management plans. This process of adaptation was completed in Suriname, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
This report provides a regional analysis of tuna fisheries situation in the Western Indian Ocean as background to work Poseidon completed for DG MARE on ex ante and ex post evaluations of fisheries partnership agreements in the region. The report profiles: environmental ocean characteristics; catches by fleets and gear type; management and conservation arrangements; stock status; access arrangements for distant water fishing vessels; vessel numbers; and product flows to market.