SEASIDE

Preserving marine biodiversity whilst maintaining the provisioning, cultural and regulating ecosystem services associated with marine fisheries in a context of global changes is a key challenge. While the need for Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM), to ensure fisheries sustainability and resilience, is widely accepted, ecosystem-based approaches are still not operational for the management of European fisheries. SEASIDE will develop an innovative set of socio-ecosystem modeling, evaluating and projective tools to implement the next generation EBFM. Combining a participatory approach, Eco-Viability Analysis with the use of Models of Intermediate Complexity, SEASIDE will provide an integrated and transdisciplinary decision-support approach, enriching the evidence base and the transfer of science into advice. We will account for the multi-species, multi-trophic, multi-sector, dynamic and uncertain nature of fisheries systems, as well as the tradeoffs between the multiple ecological, economic and social objectives underpinning EBFM. We will identify and compare eco-viable management strategies in eight contrasting case studies ranging from the Arctic through temperate to tropical seas. We will draw on the multidisciplinary expertise in ecology, social sciences, modelling and participatory research of 26 academic and non-academic partners from 12 countries and including JRC, ICES, FAO and WWF. We will integrate this work within both existing regional advisory bodies, and relevant local stakeholder arenas, to bridge the gap between knowledge on the dynamics of marine social-ecological systems and EBFM. SEASIDE will effectively disseminate the project methodological, modeling and quantitative results via the production of generic software, data sets and evaluations, as well as guidelines adapted to the needs of stakeholders at multiple spatial scales. SEASIDE outputs will thus help improve policy coherence and implementation for sustainable European fisheries.