Myfish Project: First Year Results and Plans for the Future

This meeting also highlighted the crucial role of stakeholders in the process of defining the objectives for fisheries management strategies. It was the first step toward the outline of an effective stakeholder engagement strategy.

Myfish is an EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) involving 31 project partners from 12 EU countries.

Myfish aims at defining an operational framework for the implementation of the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) concept in European waters. This should result in multi-species fisheries management plans for the project's five regional case study areas (Baltic Sea, North Sea, Western Waters, Widely Ranging Stock and Mediterranean Sea), taking into account the environmental, economic and social constraints that are embedded within the different European and national policies.

This second meeting of the Myfish partnership built on the 2012 Myfish meeting in Vigo, Spain where the project partners together with over 20 stakeholders defined the variants of MSY, the constraints and the preferred management measures. The Charlottenlund meeting outlined the potential form and content of the Decision Support Tables, which will become important tools for stakeholders and fishery managers in making the trade-off between different objectives.

Dr Cathy Dichmont, pan-regional expert in fisheries modelling from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and member of the Myfish Scientific Advisory Board, found that “the Myfish project is developing ground-breaking tools using several case studies to bring ecosystem concepts into mainstream fisheries management”.

In order to optimise lessons learned from non-EU fishery governance experiences, the Myfish project is also investigating and reviewing non-EU case studies that illustrate various aspects of sound governance in achieving biological, social and economic objectives. To support this effort, Myfish scientists are carrying out interviews with fishery managers, community leaders, stakeholders and representatives from fishing industries, NGOs and retail businesses in Australia, Alaska and the Faroe Islands.

Myfish 's progress can be followed by registering on the "Influence Myfish!" project website page to receive regular updates.

More information and materials relating to the project are available on the Myfish website: www.myfshproject.eu. The report of the Charlottenlund meeting will soon be available on the website as well.