“The outcomes of the GAP2 case studies will highlight the need to develop the structures, funding routes and decision making processes that help promote these ways of working”.

“The most significant indicator is that every single partnership from GAP1 has come over to GAP2. They must feel there is value in continuing”.

Moreover, the presence of several PhDs working on GAP2, and conference travel grants for students, demonstrate the project’s commitment to developing young researchers.

GAP2 has a greater focus on the implementation of the participatory research actions planned in the first phase. In the words of Science in Society, the project implements ‘Mobilisation and Mutual Learning (MML)’ actions to encourage successful collaboration, as Mackinson explains:

“Mobilisation is getting people together, but it’s also about mobilising their knowledge and skills. Doing participatory research is an example of mobilising people’s knowledge and bringing it together. It facilitates shared learning”.

Beyond the day-to-day research activities, specific and practical shared-learning opportunities will be created. These workshops will be designed to meet the needs of those in attendance. It’s a conscious effort to focus on what matters to the partners.

“The vital thing,” Mackinson underlines, “is to create a meaningful and focused opportunity where there is an incentive for both sides to participate”.

Mackinson notes that in a number of the case studies, the work of the project really brought about a shift in the existing paradigm:

“The Italian case study was particularly complicated because of the political structure and different agendas of the fishing organisations there. It was extremely challenging. It involved a huge effort from the scientists and the stakeholders to really get engaged and what emerged was a really successful multi-level debate. Similarly, the Maltese study was a great success. There was a high level of scepticism shown by the fishermen in regard to working with the scientists when work first started there, but GAP1 provided the opportunity for the fishing organisations to sit down with the researchers to discuss and share problems for the first time.”

Preliminarily, we performed a project presentation at the headquarters of the Galician Federation of Guilds, to members of the institution itself, as well as the larger fraternities of the Guilds for Aguiño, Ribeira and Cambados.

The purpose of this presentation was, in part, to agree the extent of involvement of the Federation of Fishermen’s associations in GAP2 project development, set reasonable goals for progress, assess the delimitation of the study area and to attain the collaboration of the entire sector. To this end, three major Guilds agreed to become involved and undertook to manage the cooperation and involvement of their member fishermen, especially during the first phase of interviews (“Ecosystem mapping”).

Following this commitment, two meetings were convened in Cambados and Aguiño with those fishermen who had planned to participate. A brief presentation was given, of the aims and objectives of the project, focusing primarily on the methodology and strategies to be followed, debating why the involvement of the sector and its operations was necessary.
The explanation of the second phase or “monitoring period”, initially created more doubts among the fishermen. One of their major concerns was the excessive time required to collect the data and complete the daily logbooks. Moreover, the inclusion of a daily geographical location device (“logger”) in each vessel would be a control mechanism that not all sectors would be necessarily happy to take on.

Given these perceptions, we tried to confer to the sector a serious commitment to treating any information obtained with the utmost confidentiality. With this agreement in place, we believe that much of the industry would now be willing to keep a logger on their boat. As for the option to cover a daily summary report of monitoring, the answer is more varied now. Therefore, upon the completion of the “Ecosystem mapping” phase, we propose to develop a series of workshops with involving fishermen, and generating one or more logbooks models best suited to the activity of each vessel or fleet segment.
We’ll see how this phase progresses in the coming months.

Kai Wätjen (scientist) was invited to attend Wadden Sea Day 2011 in Wilhelmshaven, Germany on 25^th August – ‘Fish in the Wadden Sea: an unknown world’. On 29^th September 2011, Kai Wätjen also attended a meeting in Kiel, Germany with Dirk dell Missier, Philipp Oberdoerffer and Dirk Sander about the HOVERCRAN, in addition to a Fair Oceans event on global fishery problems in Bremerhaven, Germany, and a SLOWFISCH event with presentations and trade fair stands in Bremens.

To see The Fish Site’s full article, see here.

To read the story in full, visit FishUpdate’s here.