Topic Groups and Focus sessions

The meeting will be held in plenum (presentations, discussions, other businesses).

Saturday afternoon (17/05/25) and Monday morning (19/05/25) the work will be conducted in parallel Topic Groups, which are sub-meetings focusing on specific topics.

During the WGFTFB-meeting 2025, three topic groups will meet.

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a) TOPIC Group: The use of indicators to describe and compare the performance of fishing gears (Indicators)

Conveners: Valentina Melli (Denmark), Jure Brčić (Kroatia), Chryssi Mytilineou (Greece), Jordan Feekings (Denmark), Bent Herrmann (Denmark/Norway)

Terms of reference

• Review and describe available indicators that enable comparison within and across gear types, including defining their purpose and terminology;
• Identify the need for additional indicators, for example to evaluate sustainability according to its three pillars (ecological, economic and social);
• Find data sources (e.g. population structure for target, bycatch and discards) and potential synergies with other fields (e.g. fisheries management, social sciences, fisheries economics);
• Discuss and describe the use of single and combined indicators as decision-making tools for the stakeholders (fishermen, scientists and managers);
• Identify reference points (thresholds) to support the fishery management decision-making process;
• Explore visualization and communication methods to convey both single- and multi-species gear performance to different stakeholders.

Justification

Scientists across many fields are faced with the challenge of synthesizing and communicating in a simple and accessible way complex scientific information to stakeholders. The field of gear technologies is no exception, with an increasing number of studies now including indicators of gear performance in addition to the traditional approach of presenting the species-specific, length-based selective properties of the fishing gear. Such indicators, which can convey the consequences of adopting a gear design in a specific fishery, have shown great potential to support stakeholders’ decision-making processes. They are versatile tools that can be used for multiple purposes. To evaluate the effectiveness of individual gear designs, either active or passive, in relation to sustainability objectives (environmental, economic and social). To compare multiple gear options within a fishery and identify optimal solutions in relation to both single- and multi-species catch objectives. To compare different gear types in terms of outputs (e.g. economic, ecological etc.).

The “Indicators” topic group will aim at reviewing existing tools and identifying further needs for simple, robust, and overarching gear performance indicators under the frame of sustainability. It will explore potential synergies with other fields, including fisheries management, ecosystem modelling, and fisheries economics to maximize the use of existing data. Moreover, it will frame the discussion on what are useful reference points for fishery management and carefully provide guidelines on how to use and visualize the indicators to support decision-making processes.

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b) TOPIC Group: Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG)

Conveners: Amparo Perez Roda (Italy); Kelsey Richardson (Italy); Haraldur Einarsson (Iceland); Roger Larsen (Norway);

Terms of reference

• • Review and summarize current and past work to redesign and modify gears to reduce ghostfishing.
  • Review and summarize current and past work to redesign and modify gears to increase the overall circularity of gears and the potential for repurposing and recycling.
  • Investigate and summarize gear marking technologies.
  • Develop a guide that outlines essential safety requirements to prevent a loss of fishing gear.
  • Seek synergies with the Indicators TG around identifying and developing ALDFG-related indicators that can be used to guide the analysis of the data collected from the FAO Global ALDFG surveys. The indicators should be designed to meaningfully inform fisheries management policies and interventions designed to prevent and reduce ALDFG.

Justification

Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) is a source of sea-based marine plastic pollution with a wide range of environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Some of these impacts include: wildlife entanglement in and ingestion of ALDFG, production of macro and microplastics, release of toxins, ghostfishing (the continued catch of target and non-target species after gear loss), fouling of benthic habitats, transport of invasive species, hazards to navigation and safety at sea, and economic costs and losses to fishers from losses of gear and associated catch. Education and technical guidelines, as well as gear modifications and changes in gear designs, can decrease the potential for gear abandonment, loss, and discard, as well as ghostfishing, and can support gear marking and tracking technologies. Gear modifications and changes in gear design can also enable better circularity of gears and can enable gear repurposing and recycling efforts.

This topic group will review, discuss and investigate gear modifications and designs that aim to prevent and reduce ghostfishing from ALDFG, enable gear stewardship through the inclusion of gear marking and tracking technologies, and support the responsible discard of recovered ALDFG and other end-of-life fishing gear (EOLFG). Synergies will also be sought with the Indicators TG to identify gear indicators for ALDFG that can inform fishers/administrators on different aspects of fishing gear that contribute to ALDFG prevention and reduction, minimisation of ghostfishing, the potential for gear marking and tracking, and circularity of gear designs.

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c) TOPIC Group: Operational and technical constraints of fishing gears to support coexistence with offshore wind and open-ocean aquaculture (Multi-use)

Conveners: Esther Savina (Denmark), Mattias van Opstal (Belgium), Thomas Noack (Germany)

Background

We believe that a science-based approach to better understand the operational and technical constraints from the offshore wind, open-ocean aquaculture and fishing industries can facilitate coexistence. Focus will be given to discuss how one can design wind and aquaculture projects that guarantee safe conditions of work for the fishers given the specificities of their traditional gears and operational tactics with respect to e.g., alignment, space between machines/cages or cable burial, as well as the potential for innovative fishing capture techniques to accommodate for other users.

Terms of reference

• Better understanding of the constraints from the different stakeholders by inviting keynote speakers from the various industries (e.g., wind, aquaculture, fisheries, insurance, collision risk)
• Share experiences from the different countries on multi-use of marine areas including presentations of findings from ongoing research projects
• Identify knowledge gaps in our current understanding of fishing gear operations, e.g., penetration depth or space required to manoeuvre, to support scientific documentation of the fisheries constraints with respect to multi-use
• Discuss the potential for innovative fishing capture techniques to accommodate for other users (e.g. within offshore wind farms) incl. passive gears

Justification

With increased competition for space at sea, maritime multi-use is key to enhance the sustainable joint use of resources such as wind, capture of wild fish and fish farming. However, coexistence is not always straightforward, as each industry holds technical specificities required to provide economic viability and safe operation. The objective of the topic group is to develop scientific documentation that provides practical solutions, guidelines, and recommendations to support the harmonious coexistence of all stakeholders, ensuring sustainable resource utilization and minimizing potential conflicts.

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Focus Session 1: Uncertainties surrounding active, bottom-contacting fishing gear parameters and fuel consumption

Conveners: Christopher Kerry (United Kingdom); Mollie Rickwood (United Kingdom); Ciaran McLaverty (United Kingdom); Kristian Metcalfe (United Kingdom); Ole Eigaard (Denmark); Sergio Vitale (Italy), Antonello Sala (Italy)

Background

Fishing with active, bottom-contacting fishing gears is the greatest way in which humans interact with marine sediments. Recent research has suggested that this activity may be substantially contributing to global carbon emissions, however, the reliability of these estimates have been questioned due to high levels of uncertainty amongst data that underpin the results. A greater understanding of how active, bottom-contacting fishing gears interact with marine sediments is required to reduce the level of uncertainty amongst estimates.

Terms of reference

• Discuss the uncertainties inherent in ways that active, bottom-contacting fishing gears interactions with marine sediments are measured
• Summarise efforts to establish regional active, bottom-contacting fishing gear parameters and fuel consumption

Justification

The accurate quantification of active, bottom-contacting fishing activity requires an understanding of the type and size of the gears deployed, the type and sensitivity of the seabed habitat and the frequency of interaction. Global seabed footprint estimates are usually reliant on the extrapolation of data from research conducted on European fleets due to a lack of detailed data globally. Most recently this has been used to estimate global carbon emissions from active, bottom-contacting fishing activity. However, the validity of this assumption remains untested. This focus session draws attention to the innovative ways interactions between active, bottom-contacting fishing activity and marine sediments can be measured especially focussing on gear parameters and fuel consumption estimations. We hope this session may be used as a catalyst for WGFTFB participants to work towards improving the understanding and documentation of the regional variability in gear parameters and fuel consumption.

Example Talks / Topics of interest

• Perspectives on historical and contemporary active, bottom-contacting fishing gear activity, parameters and fuel consumption
• Innovative approaches to assessing impacts and footprint of active, bottom-contacting fishing gear activity on seabed habitats
• Modelling of vessel/gear parameters to identify relationships with fuel consumption, gear openings and seabed interactions.

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Focus Session 2: Research failures, no effects and lessons learned

Conveners: Mattias Van Opstal (Belgium), Jasper Van Vlasselaer (Belgium)

Background

Scientists typically communicate their work by emphasizing successes, positive results, and impressive data. However, behind many of these polished presentations and publications lies a less visible reality: a long journey of dead ends, frustrations, and hours of unproductive effort. Drawing from the collective experience in fisheries research, we aim to create a platform that highlights not our greatest successes, but our failures, unexpected outcomes, and the lessons learned from them.

Terms of reference

1. Share null or unexpected review results.
2. Share research failures.
3. Provide insights and solutions to prevent similar challenges in future research.

Justification

By openly sharing mistakes and unsuccessful experiments, scientists can prevent the repetition of ineffective approaches, ultimately saving time and resources. Regular sharing of “failure” information will lead to improved research practices across the community. Additionally, this focus session will offer a platform for collaborative problem-solving, enabling researchers to leverage group expertise to address and potentially resolve the issues that led to failed experiments.