Data Limited Methods Training

This course will take place in 2021

The in-country short course is developed based upon the needs identified in the Training Needs Assessment, while building upon the work developed by other partners in the FarFish project.

In this way, the in-country short course is both a tool for capacity building in the GRÓ-FTP’s partner countries, as a reinforcement of our ongoing capacity building initiatives, and as a tool for systematic dissemination of results of the FarFish project for stakeholders in case study countries.

It was determined early on in the planning process that to maximise impacts, this course should be held as a regional course, allowing all case study partners to participate. Upon completion of the training needs assessment, stock assessment competencies were identified as one common capacity need for each of the partner institutions evaluated.

Topic:

Based on the TNAs, and subsequent meetings with Case Study leaders and other FarFish partners, it was determined that the most useful topic for all involved would be to focus on training scientists working the case study institutions on the use of a Data Limited Methods Tool developed by the FarFish project.

The DLM Tool is built from existing methodologies for stock assessment where data availability is limited. Underlying this is the theory that even with limited data, some crude stock assessment methodologies can still be applied, and can still be useful. These methodologies all have trade-offs. The DLM Tool created by FarFish is a system which allows the user to input any data that exists, and see which data limited methods may be used to analyse that data, what the limitations of the methods are, and what data might be useful to collect in the future for more robust analysis.

Course Description:

The DLM course will take place in Mindelo, Cabo Verde, hosted by the INDP. It will regional in focus, with participants from CRODT in Senegal and IMROP in Mauritania. As SFA (Seychelles) has significant unspent budget for the FarFish project, it was suggested that they also send 2 representatives to participate in the course, through their own funding.

We expect the course to take place over 3 days as soon as travel to Cabo Verde is possible. We hope that this will happen in 2021. The course materials were prepared in late February 2020, through collaboration between a FarFish representative from the Spanish CSIC Margarita Rincon, who developed the DLM tool, and a GRÓ-FTP fellow from CRODT in Senegal, Kamarel Ba, who participated in the 6-month course in Iceland through the FarFish cooperation. These two experts will be the lead teachers for the course.

Participants:

Participants are nominated by their institutions.

  • INDP/IMAR: 5 participants
  • CRODT: 5 participants
  • IMROP: 5 participants
  • SFA: 2 participants (self-funded)

Instructors:

CSIC/IEO: Margarita Rincon, lead instructor

CRODT: Kamarel Ba, instructor

Marine and Freshwater Research Institute of Iceland: Jonas Jónasson, support instructor

GRÓ-FTP: Mary Frances Davidson, reporting and course evaluation