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Final notes on the Skates and Rays group meeting held at Friends House on Tuesday 8 October 2013.

This guide looks at the interactions between protected species and fisheries, providing information on potential mitigation options.

The benefits of sustainable fisheries and the need to mitigate the environmental impacts of fishing and aquaculture are increasingly in the public consciousness. Poorly implemented, government run, command and control management schemes have often failed to curb fishing effort, prevent overfishing and avoid environmental degradation. Alternative, market based approaches have shown promise and, among these, enabling informed consumer choice in seafood purchasing can generate strong motivation for improved catching and culture practices.

The study covered fisheries from northwest Norway through the North Sea, English Channel/la Manche, Cantabrian Sea and Algarve to the French Mediterranean. It was carried out as a series of tasks. Task 1, preparation, involved reviewing each partner’s national fisheries and establishing liaison groups of fishermen and other industry members; Task 2, quantifying lost gear, required the partners to interview fishermen to establish their experiences of gear loss and then the survey the areas where losses were reported; Task 3, physical evolution, started with the retrieval of ‘naturally lost’ gears and then moved on to a series of exercises simulating gear loss and monitoring how the ‘lost’ gears changed over time; Task 4, ecosystem impacts, involved interpreting catch data from the experimental gears, raising the data to métier level and comparing the results to targeted commercial catches; Task 5, mitigating measures, established a sub-group to look at the ways in which gear loss is treated elsewhere, matched those approaches to the European fisheries and assessed the likely benefits of alternate strategies; Task 6, ran throughout the project and involved industry liaison, reporting and other dissemination. The work required a relatively high level of industry liaison. In practical terms this meant that each national partner set up a national advisory group (NAG) to guide the work and to ensure that the sea trials and recommendations were representative and realistic. The NAGs were mainly made up of experienced skippers but also included net riggers and other professionals as appropriate. This report, wherever possible, follows the sequence of tasks described above.

Seafish summary of key players and stakeholder activities to create a pathway to the landing obligation. Covers the devolved administrations, the Regional Advisory Councils, Producer Organisations, Fishermen's Organisations, Scientific bodies, selectivity and data colleciton trials, regional projects, EU Commission and Seafish.

The 2016 Seafood Processing Industry Report presents accurate up-to-date economic data and commentary to serve, where appropriate, as an evidence base for business decisions, policy discussions, and further research. This report provides details on the structure and size of the industry such as regional distribution, size of firms, type of broad fish species processed, type of processing activity undertaken and financial performance.

Primary Authority 3; Brexit; IUU Fishing; Fish Name Designations; Official Controls; Fish Trade; Code of Practice for Smoked Fish; Expert Group on Food Hygiene and Control of Food of Animal Origin; Freezing Treatment for Killing Viable Parasites; Brexit Priority Work Areas; Seafood Traceability; Work with FSS and Local Authorities; Shellfish Review; Regulatory Strategy; Shellfish Classification and Risk Assessments; Official Controls; Animal By Products Scottish Case Study Discussion; Regulating our Future; Acrylamide Regulation; Changes to Seafish’s Primary Authority; India and Veterinary Residues; Crystal Violet; End Use; Importers Forum; Superchilling; Markets Advisory Council; Tuna Treatment with Nitrate; US Marine Mammal Protection Act

The Annual Report provides a detailed Management Commentary and financial review of the activities undertaken by Seafish during 2013/2014 and information on future developments.

Update on latest developments relating to discards in fishing. Covers 2010 as at December 2010.