Dr. Igor Gladkov, Fish-X Communication Manager from EUTECH, along with Fabijan Hrvatin Peronja, Programme Lead for Sustainable Blue Economy from WWF Adria, moderated the webinar and welcomed the participants. EUTECH organises a series of webinars like this one along with the Fish-X consortium partners to mobilise and invite key stakeholders and interested participants to contribute to the agenda of the project.

Marius Hölter, Fish-X Coordinator from TransMarTech, delivered the opening presentation about the Fish-X project. He briefed about the background of the project stating that it is a 3-year project of 6 million euros, co-funded by the EU Horizon Europe Programme. To read more about the project, consortium partners, and their activities, please visit https://fish-x.eu/

As the title suggests, this webinar was focused on the Adriatic region and Danijel Kanski, a fisheries consultant from Croatia, was the invited keynote speaker. Mr. Kanski is a fishery and aquaculture professional for over 15 years with focus on sustainability and minimisation of negative human impact on environment through support and promotion of best practices. He gave a detailed overview of the general situation of SSF in the Adriatic region, with a focus on Croatia. The Adriatic Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea region, and both share the same management structure and situation. The Ministry of Agriculture and Department of Fisheries is the legal entity that is responsible for fisheries in Croatia. The country has put in place measures to adjust its fishing capacity with the available resources. As per 2021 statistics, the average length of SSF vessels is only 5.7 m and the average age is 40 years, which limits SSF activities to fishing grounds near the port and to one-day fishing trips only. There were 5,336 SSF boats which contributed to 3% of catch and 17% in value as compared to 869 LSF boats contributing 97% of catch and 83%in value.

In 2020, the average age of vessels license holders in the Croatian small-scale fleet was 59 years old. A small group of young vessel owners/license holders suggests that there may be a lack of initiative in opening a business in fisheries for newcomers which could have long-term consequences for the fleet in terms of the absence of successors in the fisheries business.

In the framework of the SOCFISH Project, SSF fishers answered a survey that they were satisfied with their overall work (significantly higher than the rest of the population) and that they see themselves in this industry for next five years. Most of the SSF catch is sold at the local market, and the income is often used as household expenses providing food security, primarily. For some fishermen, however, commercial benefit is not a priority since they have other sources of income.

In 2021, the total value of landings of small-scale fisheries in Croatia was €10.5 million, covering 17% of the total landing value. The SSF catches were highly diverse in 2021, which is a characteristic of the Mediterranean mixed fishery, with 36 species covering 90% of landing weight and 29 species covering 90% of value. In LSF the reality is quite different, being that four species cover 90% of landing weight and 17 species cover 90% of the value. Most of the landing weight and landing value consists of demersal fish (common sole, hake, seabream).

While explaining about the challenges of SSF, Mr. Kanski said that the Mediterranean fish populations are in a deep crisis. About 75% of fish stocks are still overfished in the Mediterranean, rising to 93% within EU waters, and total fish populations have fallen by more than one-third over the past 50 years. The cause of this ecological crisis includes fleet overcapacity, illegal fishing, and catches of unwanted species. If fishing practices don’t improve, stocks could collapse and the consequences for ecosystems, communities, and the economy will be enormous.

Narrowing down to the Adriatic Sea situation, fish stocks are in an even more alarming situation due to higher overfishing rates of demersal species in the Northern Adriatic Sea (geographical sub-area [GSA] 17), along with the high fishing pressure in marine habitats. The evidence urges the need to evaluate appropriate management approaches, mitigate several fishing activities simultaneously in the area, and minimize conflicts among them. On the bright side, there is good indicators that overexploitation of stocks has decreased over the past decade, with an accelerated reduction of fishing pressure in the last two years, particularly for key species under management plans. However, most commercial species are still overexploited, and fishing pressure is still higher in the Adriatic Sea.

The political will to improve the situation in the region is there, however, it requires a framework. The FAO Regional Plan of Action for SSF in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea has suggested following nine action points: Scientific research, SSF data, SSF management measures, SSF value chain, Participation of SSF in decision-making processes, Capacity-building, Decent work, Role of women, and Climate and Environment.

For better management of fisheries in Croatia, it was suggested that a large budget should be spent annually on collecting electronically encoded field data and make it widely accessible. Previously, data was recorded on paper, and archived at a few institutions, which eventually discard them. Data collection and distribution is a valuable contribution to science, and it has long term positive impact on the society. The technology used may involve electronic logbooks, GPS buoys, seafood traceability and transparency solutions, sensitive species tagging and monitoring, Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUV) eDNA, and ghost gear removal with remotely operated vehicles.

Marina Masanović, Fisheries Biologist at NEPHROP in Croatia, participated in the Q/A session along with the keynote speaker. She was of the view that SSF fishers fear new technologies which is a challenge in digitalisation, as they find it complicated. They also have contracts with some buyers and directly sell their catch to them. However, if workshops are arranged to train these fishers they may be more open to digital technology in the future. Paying an extra premium against the catch may be a real incentive for fishers to use technology and make fisheries sustainable. Consumers behavior also needs to be more responsible towards what they consume and force the whole supply chain to adopt sustainable practices.

One of the participants shared an organisation LIFE and another shared https://foodnected.org/ which are also striving for sustainable food practices. WWF Adria also showed an engaging documentary on Croatia fisheries and can be watched via this link.

Some of the participants were highly engaged in the conversation by writing comments and questions, which created a dynamic and interactive Q/A session. Marcus Wiemann, Fish-X Project Officer from EU Tech Chamber, thanked all the speakers and participants for joining the webinar and informed that EU Tech Chamber will continue to organise such webinars and events to promote the awareness about the project and its progress in the future. The participants were also encouraged to subscribe to Fish-X newsletter and follow Fish-X social media channels: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, to stay updated about the future developments of this project.

Key takeaways

• While diversity of fish species is broad, overfishing is a problem that needs better management with digital tools for sustainability of the local fishery sector in the Adriatic region. Facing this situation, the Croatian government needs to spend budget annually for collecting electronically encoded field data and make this data widely accessible.

• Since there are several players in the fishing sector across the region, it makes it difficult for data collection and data synchronisation creating a major challenge towards digitalisation of fisheries. Moreover, technology adoption by fishers also makes digitalisation difficult due to various reasons.
  
  
• SSF fishers in Croatia fear new technologies which is a challenge in digitalisation, as they find it complicated and complicated. However, training workshops and paying an extra premium against the catch may be a real incentive for fishers to use technology and make fisheries sustainable in the region.