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Drawing together the UK experience of lobster stocking as well as information from other programmes in Europe and North America, the report provides a sound knowledge base for anyone interested in setting up a lobster hatchery or stocking programme.

This spreadsheet is an assessment of the ecological effects of commercial fishing in waters off Southwest England (ICES Divisions VII e,f,g & h).

he Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), Seafish and the Northern Ireland (NI) Scallop Association have recently completed a report investigating the optimal areas for scallop reseeding in the Irish Sea. This work was commissioned due to an increase in exploitation of scallops around the NI coastline and a desire by industry to be proactive in enhancing long-term sustainability of stocks. Sites selected through industry engagement as proposed reseeding sites were examined by AFBI scientists to ensure that they met the characteristics required for successful settlement of scallops. Seabed habitat maps were combined to provide information for the full sea area under consideration. Scallop catches from the annual AFBI scallop survey were mapped with the full habitat map to determine the areas where scallops were present and identify the underlying habitat type. This allowed a map to be created which showed the suitable habitat for adult scallops within NI waters. All of the proposed reseeding sites fell within areas of suitable habitat. To examine further characteristics of the proposed sites, a combination of measured and modelled data was used. Salinity, food availability, bed stress (natural physical disturbance of the seabed by wave action and/or tidal currents), particulate inorganic matter, suspended particulate matter, abundance of predators, spawning season, larval dispersal and hydrodynamic models were all considered. The above information was presented to the project steering group, and using the data provided, the steering group selected the most suitable sites for reseeding from the original 13 proposed sites. Three reseeding sites (Whitehead, Drumfad Bay and South Bay) have initially been proposed, with a fourth, Roaring Rock, having potential for any future reseeding plans. The NI Scallop Association will now present the results of this work to DAERA to ask for regulation to assist in the protection of these new areas through a ban on mobile fishing gear.

The report concerns UK seafood supply chains reliant on domestic and international aquaculture production. It covers major impacts from key climate change drivers, from production to processing, and sets out major areas of adaptation action.

The potential impact of wild Pacific oysters on local biodiversity is being raised as an issue that has to be considered in environmental assessments of both new farms and changes to practices by existing farms where they occur in wildlife protected areas. A FIFG-funded project has been carried out by Seafish which focuses on Pacific oyster cultivation in and around European Marine Sites. Working closely with industry and statutory nature conservation agencies, relevant background information was collated (Development of a Pacific oyster aquaculture protocol for the UK - Technical Report and a protocol proposed (Development of a Pacific oyster aquaculture protocol for the UK - Protocol template. Where there could be an impact on protected wildlife and/or marine habitats, husbandry and management techniques have been proposed to mitigate or eliminate any potential impacts. The project complements the ‘Memorandum of Understanding for Appropriate Assessments in European Marine Sites’ that was agreed between the SAGB and Natural England.

The report summarised here has been commissioned by the Sea Fish Industry Authority (SEAFISH) with the aim of determining the potential impact of fisheries on EMS interest features and site integrity in relation to their conservation objectives.

Throughout much of the UK, the native oyster remains in a severely depleted state in the wild, having suffered for two centuries with over-exploitation, pests, disease, pollution and harsh winters. The native oyster is a Biodiversity Action Plan Species. Native oyster beds can form a flourishing part of the ecosystem, with many associated species. A significant driver for restoration of native oyster beds should therefore be re-creating and conserving an ecological resource in order to re-establish a biotope that was once common and covered wide areas of the UK inshore seabed.

South West Abalone Growers Association (SWAGA) aims to promote the sustainable development of abalone culture in the South West of the UK. In 2003 SWAGA undertook a FIFG Networking Project (FitzGerald 2003) to establish the limitations to the development of the industry of which legislative barriers were a significant feature.This legislative review has been produced as a guidance document for potential operators. Although it signposts the major legislative issues it is not exhaustive and prospective operators will need to establish site specific issues and requirements. It is also notable that there is considerable movement at present in a number of legislative areas and that any opinions provided in this report will be subject to change as interpretations evolve and regulations are updated.

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.

This report describes an assessment of the ecological effects of commercial fishing in waters off Southwest England (ICES Divisions VII e,f,g & h).

This report considers the role that fishing and aquaculture play in maintaining and enhancing shellfish ecosystem services and delivering public goods and benefits. The relevance of this to future marine policy development is also considered.

The SIP project output examines opportunities for aquaculture in/around enclosed marine water bodies, as well as the development of a generic design for a shellfish hatchery - the proposed Tidal Lagoon in Swansea Bay (TLSB) case study is a significant focus