Seville, October29th 2015.
One year after the launching of the case study in the Gulf of Cadiz, MareFrame has celebrated the decision support workshop with the stakeholders. The workshop aimed to: i) present the ecosystem model; ii) to assess the interface designed for results presentation; and iii) to select the preferred management strategy for the development of a management plan.
Representatives from the fishing sector, the public administrations at national and regional level, NGOs (WWF and CIRCE, Conservation, Information and Research on Cetaceans) and an economic research team (DMCE, UHU) were invited to participate in an event that put in practice the co-creation approach, hallmark of the MareFrame Project.
The SWW stakeholders had defined their management priority during the launching in 2014: to improve the adaptive capacity of both management measures and fishing behaviour to the attributes of the anchovy fishery (Engraulis encrasicolus), namely strong fluctuations (boom and bust dynamics) that can be forecasted with the current scientific knowledge available.
Javier Ruiz -SWW case study leader- and Margarita Rincón (ICMAN, CSIC) presented the ecosystem model developed by their team, detailing the science behind the numbers and the assumptions in which it is based. Afterwards, the first prototype of the decision support tool was introduced, allowing participants to actively use, explore and test scenarios and results.
Building on a lively and fruitful debate, the potential alternatives were assessed through the criteria and preferences defined by the stakeholders. All the attendees agreed on the usefulness of the tool and made suggestions for the next steps.
The output of the meeting will be used for:
- Improving the model
- Redefining the scenarios (business as usual, adaptive allocation of quotas, etc.)
- Developing the preferred selected strategy
- Starting the development of a management plan for the case study.
The meeting was held at the Agencia de Gestión Agraria y Pesquera de Andalucía de la Junta de Andalucía headquarters in Seville. The MareFrame Consortium wish to acknowledge boththe AGAPA staff and the Andalusian Regional Government for their support in the organization of the event.
