Project to develop innovative gear

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Funding from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) and Marine Scotland will be used to develop and trial innovative fishing gear to reduce the amount of discards vessels will have to deal with when the discard ban is phased-in for demersal fisheries from 1 January 2016.

The project intends to sea-trial new designs of nets. Image supplied by Seafish: www.seafish.org

With the introduction of the landing obligation approaching fast, the timing of this new project is so critical that Marine Scotland has agreed to advance EMFF funds ahead of the launch of the fund later in the year. The funding will facilitate a partnership involving the SFF, Marine Scotland, Seafish, Scottish Industry Discards Initiative, net-makers and fishermen.

The first phase of the project will run from now until the end of 2015 and intends to sea-trial new designs of nets with the results being disseminated throughout the Scottish fleet. It is anticipated that a further phase of the project will be in place from January 2016 to continue developing gears through to 2019.

The project will employ a manager, Jennifer Mouat with whom any interested fisher can discuss ideas they might have for improving gear selectivity. In due course a meeting will be convened to bring together fishers and net-makers to explore ideas, with nothing being discounted without proper consideration.

All ideas received will be benchmarked against the Seafish gear database and any other available information, and if agreed to be worth pursuing, may be funded to produce the net and conduct sea trials with scientific observers to allow data to provide evidence of selectivity.

The project will obtain derogations for trialling innovative gear which might not comply with current regulations or established gear categories. The project will try to ensure that the skipper who comes forward with an idea will be the skipper who trials it. At the end of the project all the information on the gear and data obtained will be available for use throughout the fleet.