FarFish fourth and final annual meeting

Last week, the FarFish consortium attended the fourth and final FarFish annual meeting. The meeting, which was originally scheduled to take place Brussels, was eventually held online for the second time in a row due to covid related travel restrictions.

FarFish key researchers and stakeholders from all over the world used the three-day event to discuss achievements and progress of the project. As the FarFish project recently got a 6-month extension due to covid related-restrictions, the event was further used to carefully plan for the final 6 months of the FarFish project.

Just like last year, the FarFish consortium was forced to rely on their internet connections for the forth and final FarFish annual meeting which took place on 25th-27th of May. Due to covid and related travel restrictions, FarFish partners unfortunately were not able to travel to meet in person as originally planned, but were sat down in front of their computers for the three-day event. The first day was dedicated to various working group meetings, as well as discussions on the FarFish CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA), which is currently under development. The CWA standard, named Good practice guidelines for developing management recommendations for the EU fleet operating outside European waters, is one of many FarFish’s outputs. The second draft of the CWA document will be published July 1st, after which, all interested stakeholders get the opportunity to review and comment on its content by 1st September 2021. The publishing of the draft and information about the commenting phase will be advertised through FarFish’s website and other main communication channels. Further details are available on the official CEN page of the project.

For the remaining two days of the annual meeting, researchers and other participants, including FarFish case study leaders, discussed the progress made and organised the work and tasks for the remaining 6 months of the project. Apart from delivering many key research outputs of the project over the coming months, the consortium will also organise and host various exciting events and conferences. This includes the conference on The External Dimension of the Common Fisheries Policy, which will take place this week, June 1st and 2nd, an online workshop on small-pelagics and environmental forcing West of Africa at the end of June, and the Final Symposium, which will be held in Brussels in November.

Without seeing each other’s faces for over a year, the FarFish consortium is extremely excited to come together in Brussels in November to share their exciting results with the rest of the world!