Acronym PSE-REDES-SP1
Category
Fisheries
Title Towards ecosystem-based management of the Azores marine resources, biodiversity and habitats Programme National Programme
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National Coordinator Telmo Morato Coordinator email telmo@uac.pt
Coordinator institution
UAC-IMAR - University of the Azores; Institute of Marine Research (Portugal)
Institutions involved
NA - Azorean Regional Government (Portugal) ,
Start year 2012 End year 2015 Funding (€) € 39,850 Website NA Summary The Marine Strategy Framework Directive defines the marine environment as ""a precious heritage that must be protected, preserved and, where practicable, restored with the ultimate aim of maintaining biodiversity and providing oceans which are clean, healthy and productive (1)."" This Directive aims to achieve good environmental status in the marine environment by 2020. The marine strategy intend to adopt an ecosystem approach to management resources, biodiversity and habitats that puts emphasis on management regimes that maintains the health of the ecosystem alongside appropriate human use of the marine environment, for the benefit of current and future generations (2).
The aims of the project are to provide an ecosystem based analysis of human impacts in marine ecosystems, and to devise policies that can mitigate and reverse harmful trends whilst ensuring economic benefits of sustainable fisheries. More precisely, this project will: (1) Integrate into a single framework a variety of relevant information regarding the physical, ecological, fisheries, economical, and social attributes of the Azores; (2) Develop ecosystem models and critically evaluate those models with respect to its role in ecosystem-based fisheries management; (3) Conduct simulations to explore and quantify the effect of different management scenarios in the whole ecosystem; (4) Present the main outcomes of the project to decision makers and other stakeholders. This project received a clear support from a large portion of the scientific community that is willing to participate in this mega meta-analyses effort. The large know-how based team will be the main driver for the success of this proposal. To achieve the main goal of developing ecosystem-based methods to the management of marine resources and habitats in the Azores Marine Park, this project proposes to conduct 3 different WP. These will ultimately allow us to present the final ecosystem based scenarios to policy decision makers and other stakeholders. WP 1 Will collate available datasets for Azores EEZ. The datasets will include information on historical and ongoing surveys on many aspects of the ecosystem as well as fishery catch and effort, and socioeconomic data. A GIS framework will be developed to integrate geo-referenced datasets in a coherent and multilayer environment; WP 2 Will incorporate data collected in WP1 to develop ecosystem-based methods to the management of Azores marine resources, biodiversity and habitats. For this task the project counts with two consultants that will play an important role in transferring knowledge and experience in the context of ecosystem modelling. The models will be used to conduct simulations to explore the potential management options, which will be disseminated in WP 3 to decision makers and other stakeholders in a feedback system. The project is expected to have a significant medium and long term impact both at a scientific level and at the governance of the Azores Marine Park.
Keywords
Ecosystem approach;
Sustainability;
Fisheries management;
Marine Region
40
Azores Grounds (27.Xa, 27.Xb)
1
Marine Region Map
