Coordinated Development and Implementation of Best Practice in Bycatch Reduction in the North Atlantic, Baltic and Mediterranean Regions

Introduction

Incidental bycatch has been identified as one of the major threats to marine species worldwide. In recent years, there have been several developments demonstrating a need from an international perspective for coordinated effort to tackle this problem.

Project Overview

The LIFE CIBBRiNA project aims to address this issue by setting up a European flagship initiative in which:

• Fishers
• Scientists
• Fisheries and environment ministries
• NGOs from 13 European countries

These stakeholders will work jointly to minimize incidental bycatch in fisheries that have a high risk of bycatch of priority marine mammals, birds, turtles, sharks, and rays. The project also aims to work towards transparent and environmentally and socioeconomically sustainable fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic, Baltic, and Mediterranean regions.

Main Objective

The main objective is to minimize and, where possible, eliminate bycatch mortality of priority endangered, threatened, and protected (ETP) species. This will be achieved through:

1. Cross-border and cross-sectoral cooperation
2. Involvement of industry, scientists, authorities, and other relevant stakeholders
3. Establishment of regionally coordinated mitigation, monitoring, and assessment programmes

Innovative Toolbox

For this, an innovative toolbox will be created, which will involve:

• A review of current approaches
• Learning from new case studies conducted in a safe environment of mutual trust and cooperation

CIBBRiNA will ensure the long-term sustainability of the recommended tools and procedures by embedding these in policy and best practice going forward.

Alignment with EU Objectives

The project is closely linked to the first specific objective of the sub-programme Nature and Biodiversity, which aims to:

• Develop, demonstrate, promote, and stimulate the scale-up of innovative techniques, methods, and approaches for reaching the objectives of the EU legislation and policy on nature and biodiversity.

It relates to the intervention area Protecting our species, where priority is given to projects that focus their activities on reducing the mortality of these species, including through bycatch.