Welcome
International conference on advances in marine technologies applied
to discard mitigation and management
2 – 4 May 2018 | VIGO · Galicia (SPAIN)
WELCOME
The MARTEC18
Conference event
Discarding is the practice of returning unwanted, usually deceased, catches to the sea due to economic or legislative reasons. Discards constitute a purposeless waste of valuable marine resources which plays an important role in the depletion of marine populations.
Practically all fishing gears catch a certain amount of unwanted or non-targeted species and specimens, representing approximately 7,3 Mt/year worldwide.
Discards are the result of a conflict of three complex systems: economy, environment and policy (social). There is a need to upgrade and integrate knowledge about the three systems to clearly understand the areas of intersection and conflict and bridge possible solutions. Knowledge should progressively facilitate solutions, but the complexity of the problem is high and there will always remain barriers such as the natural human resistance to change.
WELCOME LETTER
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the International Conference on Advances in Marine Technologies Applied to Discard Mitigation and Management (MARTEC’18) 2018, which will be held in Vigo, Spain, from 2nd to 4th May 2018.
The MARTEC’18 Conference focuses on innovative solutions to meet the requirements of the recent fishing policies, ensuring the sustainability of marine resources and the long term viability of the fishing sector. It is organized under the framework of the LIFE iSEAS Project, funded by the DG Environment of the EC (www.lifeiseas.eu).
On behalf of the Management Committee of MARTEC’18, I would like to cordially invite you to attend the conference and actively participate in its technical sessions.
Vigo, the biggest city in the northwest of Spain with one of the most important fresh fish ports worldwide, is hosting the MARTEC Conference. The Institute of Marine Research (IIM) of the CSIC will be the institution in charge of the congress organization, in collaboration with the Technological Center of Sea (CETMAR) and with the support of all partners of LIFE iSEAS (IEO, CESGA, USC, JOSMAR, OPROMAR).
We look forward to welcoming you to the MARTEC’18 and we hope you will also enjoy your participation in our Conference.
Professor Ricardo I. Pérez-Martín
President of the MARTEC’18 Scientific & Organizing Committee
Coordinator of the LIFE iSEAS Project
Professor Ricardo I. Pérez-Martín
He received his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1986. He has been a CSIC researcher since 1988 and he was Director of the Marine Research Institute of CSIC since 1994 until 2001.
Since 1988, as a permanent researcher at the Marine Research Institute in Vigo (IIM – CSIC) and within the Department of Food Technology, he has been responsible of different research projects co-financed under European, national and regional calls. He has also leaded numerous research contracts with companies and he is the author of around 100 publications together with three patents.
His research interests are focused in the fields of the development of optimized processes for the manufacture of fish products, the authentication of fish species in food products and the development of strategies for the management, treatment and recovery of discards, by-products and wastes from the fishing activity.
Nowadays, he is Research Professor at the IIM-CSIC and he leads the Food Biochemistry research group at IIM-CISC, being also the coordinator of the European project LIFE iSEAS (2014 – 2018).
There are two main common approaches to address the discard problem:
i) Reducing by-catch.
ii) Increasing by-catch utilization.
As these two harvesting strategies may be complementary, an appropriate balance between by-catch reduction and utilization is desirable for any fishery, being the first option the most desirable in terms of environmental impacts and pursued sustainability of marine resources.
The new regulatory framework forces the fishing industry to adapt the fisheries management and practices to the new rules. The objective is to improve fishing behavior through research in selectivity, monitoring as well as other solutions to minimize and manage unavoidable discards.
By 2019 all species subject to TACs regulation and those below the minimum sizes will no longer be permissible for discard.As a result, the entire catch must be kept regardless of age, size or species and quantified on board, landed, counted against the quotas and managed in land as residue and/or byproduct/resource. In contributing to the implementation of these new European regulations for a sustainable exploitation of fisheries, simultaneous actions covering both socio-economic and technological aspects are needed in both above mentioned approaches to deal with the discards problem.
