Fish Forum 2024

Dive into the depths of fisheries science at the GFCM Fish Forum 2024! Formerly known as the GFCM Forum on Fisheries Science in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, this event serves as a vibrant, multidisciplinary platform honing in on critical aspects of fisheries and their environmental impact.

What to Expect:

• 🤝 Collaboration: Forge connections between scientists and policymakers.
• 🗣️ Discussions: Engage in meaningful talks to generate scientific advice.
• 🌐 Perspectives: Explore diverse viewpoints, covering oceanographic, social science, and economic dimensions of fisheries research.
• 🌱 Sustainability: Contribute to the overarching goal of enhancing cooperation and advocating for sustainable fishing practices.

The event will be held from the 19th to the 23rd of February 2024 in the picturesque setting of Antalya, Turkey.

Iliad Participation

Iliad partners, Garabet Kazanjian (AUA) and Issam Achour (SPA/RAC) will be holding a workshop entitled "Smart Tools and Digital Twins of the Ocean: Unlocking Data Access for Evidence-Based Policy Making for Sustainable Fisheries Management". The 3-hour workshop will be held on 19th February 2024 and is jointly organised by Iliad partners, the American University of Armenia (AUA) and SPA/RAC, as well as the FAO.

In addition, Iliad partner, Anis Zarrouk from SPA/RAC will hold a joint UNEP/MAP-SPA/RAC-IUCN stand throughout the event, where they will showcase and promote their activities and the Iliad project. Anis Zarrouk (SPA/RAC) will also participate in Theme session 2 - Healthy Seas and Sustainable Fisheries as co-chair of parallel session 2.2 on "Innovation and adaptation in building resilience to climate change impacts", which will held on 21st February as part of the Fish Forum 2024 event.

Workshop: Smart Tools and Digital Twins of the Ocean: Unlocking Data Access for Evidence-Based Policy Making for Sustainable Fisheries Management

Organisers: AUA, SPA/RAC, FAO

19th February 2024

The workshop aims to explore innovative technologies that revolutionise fisheries management, ensuring the sustainable exploitation of vital resources crucial for global food security and economic development. Fisheries play a considerable role in the food security of coastal and inland communities by providing an important source of protein and other nutrients. It also plays an important role in developing countries’ economies.

In that context, ensuring sustainable exploitation of the resources is crucial. 

The FAO of the UN has formalised the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) based on a key instrument, the code of conduct for responsible fisheries (FAO, 1995) which considers the need to maintain the ecosystem resources for their sustainable use, while recognising that humans are an integral part of the process.

Timely and reliable data and information are key to support EAF implementation. With the exponential development of Information Technology tools and communication networks, the use of advanced IT solutions in fisheries (mobile-based, web-based) is a giant leap for all countries to produce necessary data and information to ensure sustainable use of the resources and to inform policymakers.

The use of advanced IT solutions is done at all levels of the fisheries supply chain by fishers, processors, exporters, national fishery officers, national fishery biologists and scientists.

The FAO has the mandate to support its Member States to reinforce their capacity to sustainably manage their resources, including monitoring and stock assessment. The Fisheries and Aquaculture Division has developed a platform, Calipseo, which can be deployed for National Fisheries Authorities to manage administrative and fisheries-dependent data, to produce fishery data, statistics and information. This platform, developed with open-source frameworks, is a web-based centralised information system to collect, store, compute and analyse fishery data. It can be connected to external data sources (mobile applications for instance) and produce data and dashboards to support evidence-based policy-making at the national level. It also helps countries to comply with their regional and international reporting obligations (CGPM, FAO etc..); it is currently deployed in eight countries.

The second part of the workshop will be dedicated to innovative technologies and digital twins of the ocean as tools that can be used by the fisheries sector. Iliad is a Horizon 2020 project that creates Digital Twins of the Ocean (DTO) by leveraging advanced technologies, data integration, and modelling capabilities. In this workshop, we will: 

• Introduce the Iliad project and the concept of DTOs. 

• Highlight the latest advances in ocean data and DTO applications within the fisheries and aquaculture sectors. 

• Demonstrate innovative fisheries-related solutions that Iliad is piloting in the North and Black Seas, as well as aquaculture-related solutions. 

• Elaborate how the Iliad DTOs contribute to fisheries sustainability, by introducing a valuable decision-making and policy compliance tool for multi-layered governance, which incorporates forecasted changes and what-if scenarios in policy outcomes. 

Key topics that will be discussed during the workshop are:

• Integration of real-time data: Demonstrating how fishers can access real-time ocean data through DTO platforms to make informed decisions and reduce their environmental footprint. -

• Climate change resilience: Discussions on how the development of DTO solutions can assist in building climate change resilience and decarbonisation within fisheries and aquaculture, helping stakeholders adapt to changing environmental conditions. 

• Replicable and adaptable solutions: Investigate the scalability and adaptability of DTO applications for marine and coastal area management, aligned with regional policies and sustainable development goals. 

Through this workshop, we aim to foster dialogue and engage stakeholders to co-design DTO and ocean data innovations for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture practices by bringing together scientists, practitioners, industry representatives, and policymakers to exchange knowledge and best practices. After showcasing Iliad DTO fisheries pilot prototypes, the participants will have the opportunity to engage in discussions on future collaborations. 

Agenda:

• Introduction: the objective of the workshop (10 minutes)

• Presentation of Calipseo as a national institutional fisheries information system to produce data and statistics to support evidence-based policymaking. (45 minutes)

• Discussion (45 minutes)

• Break (15 minutes)

• Iliad presentation (45 minutes)

• Introducing the Iliad Digital Twins of the Ocean project (7 minutes)

• Demonstration of pilots (30 minutes)

• ILVO: Fishery pilot in the North Sea (10 minutes)

• Terrasigna: Fishery pilot in the Black Sea (10 minutes)

• Genillard & co: Aquaculture insurance in Norway (10 minutes, TBC)

• Testimony by a fisher (8 minutes)

• Stakeholder survey and discussion (45 minutes)