Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Personal tools

You are here: Home

Search results

RSS Subscribe to an always-updated RSS feed.

48 items matching your search terms.
Filter the results.
Item type


































New items since



Sort by relevance · date (newest first) · alphabetically
Article Reference Potential for Mesopelagic Fishery Compared to Economy and Fisheries Dynamics in Current Large Scale Danish Pelagic Fishery
Mesopelagic fish species represent a large potentially unexploited resource for the fishing industry and the fish meal, oil, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical production. However, thorough investigation on ecological sustainability and socio- economic viability are fundamental prerequisites for potential exploitation. The current study explores the economic viability of a potential mesopelagic fishery investigating minimum catch rates, under the assumption of previous assessments of biological sustainability of such exploitation. We analyzed fishery data from the North-East Atlantic fisheries of the Danish large pelagic fleet from 2015 to 2019, by comparing the combined data on fishing dynamics and cost-structures with data from interviews of key pelagic producer organization representatives to develop scenarios of profitability. The results show full year-round fleet occupation with the ongoing fisheries, exposing the need of switching from existing activities, or investing into new vessels for conducting potential mesopelagic fishery. Economic analyses revealed that the minimum revenue to break even (zero profit) by trip varies among métiers between 60,000 and 200,000 euro showing strong positive correlation with vessel sizes. High profitability was discovered for herring, Atlantic mackerel and blue whiting fisheries while low profitability was observed for the Norway pout fishery. Due to the lack of mesopelagic fishery data, different scenarios of profitability were investigated as informed by the pelagic catch sector stakeholder perceptions of prices and costs and compared to current economic dynamics. A high break-even revenue per trip was forecasted given the increased perceived costs for fuel, modifications of gears and on-board processing methods and potential new vessel investments. High profitability may be reached if the catches exceed 220–1,060 tons per trip depending on costs and vessel storage capacity. If the conservation methods are improved from current refrigerated sea water, fishing trips could last longer than 5 days, being the major limiting economic factor for potential mesopelagic fishery. Future investigations on realistic mesopelagic catches trip durations and spatio-temporal distribution of fisheries in relation to location, resource abundance, fishing rights, storage and conservation methods will be essential to test the robustness of the scenarios proposed in this study, and will in turn benefit of the economic requirements evaluated herein.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021
Article Reference From plate to plug: The impact of offshore renewables on European fisheries and the role of marine spatial planning
Offshore renewables (OR), such as offshore wind farms, are a key pillar to address increasing energy demands and the global transition to a carbon-free power sector. The transition to ever more occupied marine spaces, often facilitated by marine spatial planning (MSP), increases the conflict potential with free ranging marine sectors such as fisheries. Here, we quantified for the first time the direct impact of current and future OR development on fisheries across European seas. We defined direct impact as the average annual fishing effort (h) overlapping with OR planning sites and applied an ensemble approach by deploying and harmonising various fisheries data to optimise spatial coverage for the European seas. The North Sea region will remain the centre of OR development for a long time, but a substantial increase of conflict potential between these sectors will also occur in other European sea basins after 2025. Across all sea basins, fishing fleets deploying bottom contacting gears targeting flatfish and crustaceans are and will be affected the most by the already constructed and planned OR. Our results provide a solid basis towards an understanding of the socio-economic effects of OR development on European fisheries. We argue that European MSP processes need to adopt common strategies to produce standardised and harmonised socio-economic data to understand implications of OR on free-ranging marine activities such as fisheries.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021
Webpublished Reference Offshore wind farms as stepping stones for Non-indigenous species
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021
Article Reference Ornithologisc belang van de Belgische zeegebieden - Importance ornithologique des espaces marins de la Belgique
Located in RBINS Publications / Bulletin of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences - Biology / Bulletin of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences - Biology
Article Reference A global horizon scan of issues impacting marine and coastal biodiversity conservation
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Increased food availability at offshore wind farms affects trophic ecology of plaice Pleuronectes platessa
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference International assessment of priority environmental issues for land-based and offshore wind energy development
Abstract Non-technical summary A substantial increase in wind energy deployment worldwide is required to help achieve international targets for decreasing global carbon emissions and limiting the impacts of climate change. In response to global concerns regarding the environmental effects of wind energy, the International Energy Agency Wind Technical Collaborative Program initiated Task 34 – Working Together to Resolve Environmental Effects of Wind Energy or WREN. As part of WREN, this study performed an international assessment with the global wind energy and environmental community to determine priority environmental issues over the next 5‒10 years and help support collaborative interactions among researchers, developers, regulators, and stakeholders. Technical summary A systematic assessment was performed using feedback from the international community to identify priority environmental issues for land-based and offshore wind energy development. Given the global nature of wind energy development, feedback was of interest from all countries where such development is underway or planned to help meet United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change targets. The assessment prioritized environmental issues over the next 5–10 years associated with wind energy development and received a total of 294 responses from 28 countries. For land-based wind, the highest-ranked issues included turbine collision risk for volant species (birds and bats), cumulative effects on species and ecosystems, and indirect effects such as avoidance and displacement. For offshore wind, the highest-ranked issues included cumulative effects, turbine collision risk, underwater noise (e.g. marine mammals and fish), and displacement. Emerging considerations for these priorities include potential application to future technologies (e.g. larger turbines and floating turbines), new stressors and species in frontier regions, and cumulative effects for multiple projects at a regional scale. For both land-based and offshore wind, effectiveness of minimization measures (e.g. detection and deterrence technologies) and costs for monitoring, minimization, and mitigation were identified as overarching challenges. Social media summary Turbine collisions and cumulative effects among the international environmental priorities for wind energy development.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: Opportunities and challenges on the path towards biodiversity recovery
The European Union (EU) has committed to an ambitious biodiversity recovery plan in its Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Green Deal. These policies aim to halt biodiversity loss and move towards sustainable development, focusing on restoring degraded habitats, extending the network of protected areas (PAs), and improving the effectiveness of management, governance, and funding. The achievement of conservation goals must be founded on understanding past successes and failures. Here, we summarise the strengths and weaknesses of past EU biodiversity conservation policies and practices and explore future opportunities and challenges. We focus on four main aspects: i) coordination among and within the EU Member States, ii) integration of biodiversity conservation into socio-economic sectors, iii) adequacy and sufficiency of funds, and iv) governance and stakeholder participation.Whilst past conservation efforts have benefitted from common rules across the EU and funding mechanisms, they have failed at operationalizing coordination within and across the Member States, integrating biodiversity conservation into other sectoral policies, adequately funding and effectively enforcing management, and facilitating stakeholder participation in decision-making. Future biodiversity conservation would benefit from an extended and better-managed network of PAs, additional novel funding opportunities, including the private sector, and enhanced co-governance. However, it will be critical to find sustainable solutions to potential conflicts between conservation goals and other socio-economic objectives and to resolve inconsistencies across sectoral policies.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Octet Stream The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: Opportunities and challenges on the path towards biodiversity recovery
The European Union (EU) has committed to an ambitious biodiversity recovery plan in its Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Green Deal. These policies aim to halt biodiversity loss and move towards sustainable development, focusing on restoring degraded habitats, extending the network of protected areas (PAs), and improving the effectiveness of management, governance, and funding. The achievement of conservation goals must be founded on understanding past successes and failures. Here, we summarise the strengths and weaknesses of past EU biodiversity conservation policies and practices and explore future opportunities and challenges. We focus on four main aspects: i) coordination among and within the EU Member States, ii) integration of biodiversity conservation into socio-economic sectors, iii) adequacy and sufficiency of funds, and iv) governance and stakeholder participation.Whilst past conservation efforts have benefitted from common rules across the EU and funding mechanisms, they have failed at operationalizing coordination within and across the Member States, integrating biodiversity conservation into other sectoral policies, adequately funding and effectively enforcing management, and facilitating stakeholder participation in decision-making. Future biodiversity conservation would benefit from an extended and better-managed network of PAs, additional novel funding opportunities, including the private sector, and enhanced co-governance. However, it will be critical to find sustainable solutions to potential conflicts between conservation goals and other socio-economic objectives and to resolve inconsistencies across sectoral policies.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Inbook Reference Energie (inclusief kabels en leidingen)
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022