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In 2011, European policymakers initiated a major reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) to improve the Union's fisheries management system, a challenge that proved necessary given the state of fish stocks in European waters. Balancing environmental and socio-economic objectives in fisheries management was imperative. The main objective of the reform was therefore to ensure the preservation of marine resources while increasing the competitiveness of European fishing fleets. These two aspects are not antagonistic but complementary, because the preservation of fisheries resources constitutes a prerequisite for a successful fishing sector. This principle has been assimilated by fishers, who also understood that an overhaul was necessary to ensure the sustainability of their activities. There is no need to remind the reader that the task incumbent on the European Parliament and the Council was far-reaching. After months of intense institutional negotiations, the revised CFP was introduced in 2013, articulated as two flagship measures: (i) reach the objective of maximum sustainable yield (MSY) in 2020 and (ii) introduce the Landing Obligation. Whether or not we consider the Landing Obligation as being adapted to the overall objectives of the CFP will not be the subject of my remarks. Whilst it is crucial that the Union's fisheries management system should improve selectivity of catches and so contribute to the sustainability of fisheries, I have personally been a long-time opponent to the obligation to land. But only time will tell whether this measure will prove successful. If the means of action might be controversial and open to debate, the overall sustainability objective is undeniable. For the past 5 years, we have gradually introduced the measures necessary for the implementation of the CFP. In 2015, I was acting as the rapporteur for the implementation of the Landing Obligation (omnibus regulation) where my objective was to ensure a smooth transition for the fisheries sector while respecting the principle ...

To assess the likely economic outcomes to fishing fleets of the Landing Obligation (LO), bioeconomic models covering seven European fisheries, ranging from the North East Atlantic to the Mediterranean, have been applied to estimate the economic performance of fleets before and after implementing the LO. It is shown that for most of the analysed fisheries, their economic outcome will be negatively affected in the long term by the LO, when compared to the expected outcome with no LO. Efficient mitigation strategies (exemptions, quota uplifts, improved selectivity, effort reallocation and others) may, for some of the analysed fisheries, reduce the negative economic effect of the LO. Moreover, the possibility to trade quotas, both nationally and internationally, may also reduce the economic losses caused by the LO. However, even with mitigation strategies and/or quota trade in place, most of the analysed fisheries are worse off under the LO than what could be expected if the LO was not implemented ; This work received funding from the Horizon 2020 Programme under grant agreement DiscardLess number 633680 and from the LIFE+Environmental Program of the European Union under grant agreement iSEAS project, Ref. LIFE13 ENV/ES/000131. This support is gratefully acknowledged

15 pages,3 figures, 3 tables, supplementary material https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00594/full#supplementary-material ; Aiming to end the practice of discarding unwanted catches back to the sea within European marine waters, an obligation to land the catches of all regulated commercial species was introduced with the Common Fisheries Policy, with required implementation by the first of January 2019. The implementation of this new fisheries regulation urges the definition of standard monitoring protocols to track potential changes in the European fisheries. Importantly, this framework needs to be multi-dimensional to capture the ecological, social and economic components of the fisheries system. Aiming to address this challenge, a set of 39 candidate indicators were identified by means of literature review and expert consultation. Experts in European fisheries were gathered to discuss the selection of a restricted set of indicators and later, a remote survey was completed by the experts to assess the adequacy of the indicators against pre-defined quality criteria and to identify expected direction of change. Based on survey results, the candidate indicators were ranked according to their adequacy for monitoring of the landing obligation (LO) potential effects. This ranking was dominated by indicators related to the exploited species, rather than the social or economic dimensions of the fisheries. Because the LO is not yet fully implemented, experts expressed uncertainty in the properties of many indicators, particularly related to ecosystem properties and social system properties, and had divergent opinions on the effect of the LO on discard numbers. The feasibility to operationalize a monitoring framework with the prioritized indicators was explored with data from a Spanish demersal otter-trawl fishery. This exercise evidenced that most indicators can be routinely collected and that it would be feasible to track these variables over time in the framework of a monitoring program. However, gaps exist in the time series of the studied indicators, especially for the period after the LO implementation. This study can provide valuable baseline information for any future monitoring program, as its objective was the development of a methodological approach that contributes to science-based policy making and to indicator selection for fisheries management reforms ; This study was developed in the framework of MINOUW EU project (Project ID: 634495). SJ was funded by H2020-Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action MSCA-IF-2016 (Project ID: 743545) ; Peer Reviewed

Fisheries policy is increasingly influenced by civil society organizations. The newest example of this is the formulation of the landing obligation, a regulation that should reduce the contested practice of discarding unwanted fish. In this paper the implementation process of the landing obligation in four European countries is compared. From this comparison it becomes clear that fishers are working on diminishing discards. However it also shows that for the legitimacy, and the effectiveness of policy it is not only vital to increase the influence of civil society actors, but also the participation of resource users. Their views, knowledge, and cooperation are vital for a successful implementation of the regulation. Otherwise, resistance become too high, and regulation becomes more symbolic than a tool for change.

By 2015 The European Common Fisheries Policy Reform includes a landing obligation in some fisheries and over the next few years all EU fisheries will be facing the obligation to land all catches. In spite of that, there is a lack of theoretical as well as empirical analyses of the consequences of a landing obligation. The paper includes an empirical analysis of the landing obligation's impact on the Danish fishery in the short run. In the first part of the paper, we survey the fisheries economics literature for theoretical findings regarding behavioural aspects of a discard ban and we exploring gaps in our knowledge. A comprehensive analysis of the short term economic impacts of the discard ban for the Danish fleet under various assumptions regarding costs of handling previously discarded fish, prices obtained for them, selectivity, minimum sizes, and quota utilization is presented. Among other things, the analysis shows that the fisheries will suffer economic losses under the landing obligation if quotas are not increased with the historical discard rate. With quota top-ups however fisheries can experience economic gains which increase with reduced minimum sizes or by increasing selectivity. ; By 2015 The European Common Fisheries Policy Reform includes a landing obligation in some fisheries and over the next few years all EU fisheries will be facing the obligation to land all catches. In spite of that, there is a lack of theoretical as well as empirical analyses of the consequences of a landing obligation. The paper includes an empirical analysis of the landing obligation's impact on the Danish fishery in the short run. In the first part of the paper, we survey the fisheries economics literature for theoretical findings regarding behavioural aspects of a discard ban and we exploring gaps in our knowledge. A comprehensive analysis of the short term economic impacts of the discard ban for the Danish fleet under various assumptions regarding costs of handling previously discarded fish, prices obtained for them, selectivity, minimum sizes, and quota utilization is presented. Among other things, the analysis shows that the fisheries will suffer economic losses under the landing obligation if quotas are not increased with the historical discard rate. With quota top-ups however fisheries can experience economic gains which increase with reduced minimum sizes or by increasing selectivity.

Unwanted catches and discards have contributed to undermining the sustainability of fish stocks. The European Union's most important step to reduce discards was the implementation of a landing obligation for all its commercial fisheries. However, evaluations by EU authorities and scientists alert of general lack of compliance with this landing obligation. This article inquiries on the factors of institutional nature that could have contributed to this outcome. We identify three important institutional factors related to the EU multilevel governance approach that, through diverse mechanisms, contribute to the landing obligation's generalized non-compliance: (a) the centralized, top-down governance approach, (b) the influence of special interests and (c) the decentralized enforcement. ; Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISUG ; Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481A-2016/457 ; Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B 2018/074

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISUG ; Unwanted catches and discards have contributed to undermining the sustainability of fish stocks. The European Union's most important step to reduce discards was the implementation of a landing obligation for all its commercial fisheries. However, evaluations by EU authorities and scientists alert of general lack of compliance with this landing obligation. This article inquiries on the factors of institutional nature that could have contributed to this outcome. We identify three important institutional factors related to the EU multilevel governance approach that, through diverse mechanisms, contribute to the landing obligation's generalized non-compliance: (a) the centralized, top-down governance approach, (b) the influence of special interests and (c) the decentralized enforcement. ; Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481A-2016/457 ; Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B 2018/074

This open access book provides a comprehensive examination of the European Landing Obligation policy from many relevant perspectives. It includes evaluations of its impacts at economical, socio-cultural, ecological and institutional levels. It also discusses the feasibility and benefits of several potential mitigation strategies. The book was timely published, exactly at the time where the Landing Obligation was planned to be fully implemented. This book is of significant interest to all stakeholders involved, but also to the general public of Europe and to other jurisdictions throughout the world that are also searching for ways to deal with by-catch and discard issues.

The EU Landings Obligation: An ambitious Policy, that may impact the fishing industry in the short-term… Q: How can Science help mitigate such impacts, and so support the successful implementation of the policy? A: Science cannot force changes, but Science GATHERS and SHARES USEFUL KNOWLEDGE to inform changes!!!

Accounting for the interactions and effects of fisheries targeting multiple species is a longstanding issue in management systems using single species quota allocations as output control of fish stocks, such as in the European Union (EU). An unfortuante sideeffect of such management is discarding, which is the act of returning catches to the sea for one or several reasons, including insufficient quota. To minimize discarding, the EU has gradually implemented a regulation making it mandatory for fishers to take (most) catches to port. This landing obligation aim at ending discards for most fisheries and fish stocks and at incentivising fishers to increase their selectivity. For mixed fisheries, the landing obligation has thus increased the importance of catch composition (the mix of species caught together), because the regulation takes away the mechanism by which fishers previously dealt with mismatches between quota allocations and actual catches in mixed fisheries; discarding. How to adapt the fisheries and fisheries control to the landing obligation is a question of practical options at-sea but also what expectations key stakeholders have to the landing obligation and how much they are ready to comply with it. In line with the intention of the landing obligation, improved selectivity is the main option for fishers to adapt to the landing obligation. Together with increased gear selectivity, increased spatial selectivity by identifying the spatial and temporal occurrences of unwanted catches are options for optimising the fishing effort to best target wanted catches and thereby increase selectivity. However, the current fisheries management and data collection systems in Europe do not include full coverage of at-sea fishing operations. New technologies like electronic monitoring with video (EM) and opportunistic data collected at-sea may provide the additional information necessary to address the fine-scale adaptations required to improve spatial selectivity. At the same time, these new technologies may well provide a better data basis to provide the scientific advice for the management of the European fisheries. This PhD investigated the expectations of Danish fishers and fishery inspectors towards the landing obligation, as well their opinions on EM as a compliance tool in the fisheries (Paper I). We found that the landing obligation is perceived as difficult to enforce by fishery inspectors and that the majority of fishers are negative or indifferent towards the landing obligation. We found that fishery inspectors favour at-sea monitoring and observers over EM but that EM in general is seen as an option among fishery inspectors to ensure compliance with the landing obligation. Fishers have a more negative opinion towards EM, although this is mainly the case for fishers with no experience of having EM on-board, whereas the majority of fishers with experience with EM are positive towards EM. As mentioned above, improved spatial selectivity is one of the main options for adapting to the landing obligation. Adding new data to the existing sources of fisheries dependent data, like onboard observers, logbooks and vessel monitoring systems, could potentially provide new opportunities for improving the daily fishery tactics of where and when to fish. During this PhD, a new source of fisheries dependent data already existing in the Danish fisheries came to our attention. This data source, called SIF, "Sporbarhed I Fiskerisektoren" [traceability in the fisheries sector] collects information on retained catches packed at-sea from on-board grading machines. The system is used for traceability requirements, where fishers pack and label their fish at-sea (sea-packing) which ensures buyers of the fish that the crates holding the fish are labelled correctly. In terms of information level, this voluntary system resembles what is already required in the electronic logbooks (which are mandatory for vessels above 12 meters in length). However, where logbooks for catch information record only the species and volume landed, SIF also records the size (commercial size categories) of the landed fish. As such, the spatial distribution of fish sizes can be extracted. Fish size is an important driver in fishing tactics because minimum sizes determine whether fish can be sold for human consumption and because for most species, the prices per kg are higher for fish with a larger body size. This sea-packing data has to our knowledge never been used for scientific purposes. Therefore, this PhD investigated the coverage and reliability of data from the vessels which sea-pack and use the SIF system (Paper II). It was found that the validity of sea-packing data in the SIF system is not only vessel specific; it can also vary depending on the species. No clear factors were found that could explain these variations. If using SIF as scientific data input, one has to validate the quality of the data for each vessel and species for which the analysis is to be run. Unlike the SIF system, EM is established as a control tool in the United States and Canada and European trials have used EM for several management purposes. Based on data from the largest and longest running Danish EM trial, the reliability and cost of EM was investigated (Paper III). It was found that the reliability of EM in the Danish trial has been increased by technical developments and simple practical fixes. This underpin EM as a feasible Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) tool. While automated image analysis is currently the main development, which can lower EM costs, it was found that video audit times and the corresponding running costs of EM have already decreased by optimising video audit routines. EM is not a silver bullet that by default is the optimal solution for compliance or data collection, but it is a cost-effective measure compared to the current alternatives like on-board observers or at-sea control. Finally, the analysed sea-packing and EM data was used as case study input to a book chapter as part of the Horizon 2020 project "DiscardLess" (Book chapter I). The aim of these case studies was to present support tools to fishers, which may assist them in optimising their spatial selectivity. In conclusion, EM and traceability systems like SIF do provide opportunities for improved data in fisheries management and fisheries science. Within the context of the landing obligation, EM and traceability systems has a dual applicability. On one hand, these systems can assists fishers with additional information to adjust their fishery and increase selectivity. On the other hand, these systems can be used as a control tool. The acceptance of such systems rely much on how they are used. While this is a policy decision, science plays an important role in advising decision makers and stakeholders. Bringing the work of this PhD into the advisory sphere and future publications is the next stage for my work on SIF and EM. 4

In the European Union, discards represent a major source of undocumented mortality, contributing to the overfishing of European fish stocks. However, little attention has been given by the scientific community to discards in the European Union's small-scale fisheries (SSF). This is mainly due to the fact that discards are mostly generated by industrial fisheries, while SSFs were generally thought to have lower discard rates than industrial fisheries. A Landing Obligation (LO) is being introduced in European waters with the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) (Article 15, EU regulation 1380/2013) to limit/reduce discarding. However, management recommendations are required to support its implementation. The reality and challenges to enforce the LO in SSF are analyzed in this chapter, gathering information from different small-scale fisheries and fishers from the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea who were asked about their perceptions toward the LO. The objectives of this chapter are to (a) identify the reasons for discarding and (b) investigate the multiple ecological, economic, social, and institutional drivers which act as a barrier toward the implementation of the LO in SSF. Given the high importance of SSF in the southern countries of Europe, different case studies of SSF from France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain coasts are used to illustrate the reasons for discarding, the impacts of the LO on SSF, and the barriers for its implementation ; The authors acknowledge the financial support from the European COST Action "Ocean Governance for Sustainability – challenges, options and the role of science" and by the ICES Science Fund Project "Social Transformations of Marine Social-Ecological Systems", and MINOUW (Grant Agreement 634495). C. Pita acknowledges FCT/MEC national funds and FEDER co-funding, within the PT2020 partnership Agreement and Compete 2020, for the financial support to CESAM (Grant no UID/AMB/50017/2013). C.M. Teixeira had the support of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) ...

20 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables ; In the European Union, discards represent a major source of undocumented mortality, contributing to the overfishing of European fish stocks. However, little attention has been given by the scientific community to discards in the European Union's small-scale fisheries (SSF). This is mainly due to the fact that discards are mostly generated by industrial fisheries, while SSFs were generally thought to have lower discard rates than industrial fisheries. A Landing Obligation (LO) is being introduced in European waters with the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) (Article 15, EU regulation 1380/2013) to limit/reduce discarding. However, management recommendations are required to support its implementation. The reality and challenges to enforce the LO in SSF are analyzed in this chapter, gathering information from different small-scale fisheries and fishers from the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea who were asked about their perceptions toward the LO. The objectives of this chapter are to (a) identify the reasons for discarding and (b) investigate the multiple ecological, economic, social, and institutional drivers which act as a barrier toward the implementation of the LO in SSF. Given the high importance of SSF in the southern countries of Europe, different case studies of SSF from France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain coasts are used to illustrate the reasons for discarding, the impacts of the LO on SSF, and the barriers for its implementation ; The authors acknowledge the financial support from the European COST Action "Ocean Governance for Sustainability – challenges, options and the role of science" and by the ICES Science Fund Project "Social Transformations of Marine Social-Ecological Systems", and MINOUW (Grant Agreement 634495). C. Pita acknowledges FCT/MEC national funds and FEDER co-funding, within the PT2020 partnership Agreement and Compete 2020, for the financial support to CESAM (Grant no UID/AMB/50017/2013). C.M. Teixeira had the support of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) (Pest-OE/MAR/UI0199/2011); and C.M. Teixeira and C. Pita were supported by the Research Project "LESSisMORE – LESS discards and LESS fishing effort for BETTER efficiency on the small-scale fisheries" (Ref. "LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-028179"), support by the FEDER Funds through the COMPETE 2020, by the PIDDAC through FCT/MCTES. TM thanks the support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation project DiscardLess (Grant Agreement No 633680), the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) strategic project UID/MAR/04292/2013 granted to MARE. He is also supported by the Program Investigador FCT (IF/01194/2013/CP1199/CT0002) ; Peer Reviewed