The 4th Annual General Assembly meeting of the Ecocentric Management for Sustainable Fisheries and Healthy Marine Ecosystems (EcoScope) Project took place from Tuesday, November 5 to Thursday, November 7, 2024 at the Balearic Oceanographic Centre of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Forty-six (46) researchers from 17 countries –Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Malta, Portugal, the Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Spain, the UK and the USA– participated in the event, including Q-quatics Science Director, Dr. Maria Lourdes ‘Deng Palomares, and AquaMaps Theme Lead, Ms. Kathleen Reyes. This important gathering brought together the EcoScope consortium members to facilitate communication and further strengthen collaborations within the network.
During the three-day meeting, participants shared updates on the project’s activities across its eleven work packages, highlighting their results and key achievements to combat ecosystem degradation and the impacts of unsustainable fishing in various European seas. These work packages (WP) are structured into three interlinked clusters, namely, Cluster A –Bottom-up and top-down forcing on ecosystems, Cluster B –Quantification for management and planning, and Cluster C –Interaction with society and economy. Q-quatics participates mainly in Cluster A and C, and has remained timely in its contributions to WP3 and WP4 (Cluster A), and is set to complete work for the EcoScope Academy under (Cluster C) in early 2025.
Discussions focused on strategies for advancing the project’s objectives and remaining deliverables as the four-year project’s end date is fast approaching (August 31, 2025). Overall, the work packages are progressing as planned. While a few deliverables due next year remain pending, they are progressing in line with the project timeline. Dr. Athanassios Tsikliras of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, EcoScope coordinator, expressed his satisfaction with the project’s progress, and how partner collaborations continue to proceed smoothly.
“We have now entered the final year of the project and we are happy that we are doing more than we promised in the proposal. The EcoScope platform is now complete with all datasets and the infrastructure of the EcoScope toolbox is ready, while most case studies have developed temporal and spatial ecosystem models for testing climate and fisheries scenarios. By the end of the project, we will deliver e-tools and a series of ecosystem models and indicators that will facilitate policy makers and promote ecocentric fisheries management.”
Dr. Howard Townsend of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), member of the International Advisory Board, also shared how impressed he was at the progress achieved, given the extensive plans outlined by the various work packages during the 2nd General Assembly in Toulouse.
The outcomes of all EcoScope project work packages will be consolidated into a policy brief targeted at the entire European Union. The four primary products of EcoScope will include:
(1) EcoScope Platform that integrates all ecosystem information from external providers, as well as assimilate data, model results and indicators from the Project; (2) EcoScope Toolbox, a decision-support tool employing a scoring system that considers assessments of all ecosystem components and their drivers; (3) the EcoScope Academy, consisting of online courses, webinars, games and similar resources for stakeholder capacity building; and (4) the EcoScope App, a mobile phone application facilitating public engagement (citizen science) in fisheries management and marine conservation efforts.
