Fisheries in the Baltic: Vilnius workshop conclusions

More than 70 participants from 13 countries gather in Vilnius to discuss future of fisheries research in the Baltic.

As part of the PROFET Policy Project, Eurofish organised a workshop on Baltic fisheries research on the 19/20 of April in Vilnius Lithuania. The main objective of the workshop was to identify future research needs for the Baltic fisheries.

Over the course of these 2 days more than 70 participants from 13 countries representing fishermen’s associations, research institutes, research projects, governments and NGO’s attended the workshop and participated in the ensuing debate.

The workshop was opened by H.E. Ms Kazimiera Danutė Prunskienė, Minister of Agriculture of Lithuania and chaired by Henn Ojaveer from the Estonian Marine Institute of the University of Tartu. Christopher Hopkins (AquaMarine Advisers) led the discussion panel of the second day where panellists’ Michael Andersen (Danish Fishermen’s Association), Reinhard Priebe (DG Fish), Johan Modin (Swedish Board of Fisheries), Jon Sutinen (Rhode Island University) and Henrik Sparholt (ICES) were asked to reflect upon questions aimed at highlighting priorities for research in fisheries science in the Baltic area. The audience participated actively by putting its own questions to the panellists and by providing by filling out a questionnaire.

A strong call for integrated research

The main conclusions of the workshop stemming both from the discussion panel and the answers provided by the participants are that natural/physical science in the Baltic appears to be fairly well researched, but there is a feeling that it might be at the expense of social sciences. The focus should be shifted from the fish to the human dimension of fisheries.

Generally speaking, there was a strong call to integrate different fields of science (environmental, social, political, economics...) into scientific advice to management, i.e. a call for more multidisciplinary advice to management.

Need for increased dialogue among stakeholders: collaborative research as the way forward?

The applicability and effectiveness of research as well as the translation of its result in a useful and understandable manner was questioned by some stakeholders, while on the other hand others highlighted a lack of political will as the main obstacle to tackle problems that are otherwise well known and documented.

In the light of these comments, the proposal for increased dialogue between scientists, fishermen, local communities and policy makers is of utmost importance, and the Baltic Sea RAC can be considered as a step in the right direction. The idea of cooperative research projects integrating fishing communities and scientists might be another way to help foster mutual trust and to address the complaint that science does not belong only to scientists.

PROFET POLICY is an initiative funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme.