Presentation

The fishing vessel owners’ co-operative of the port of Vigo (ARVI) and its associates have been collaborating with fisheries research for many years, namely with the Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO).

Since 2000 a great step forward took place with the participation of one of ARVI’s associates  (ANAMER) as partner in two research projects funded by the European Commission (leader of one of them).

Research Collaboration

ARVI’s collaboration with fisheries research has mainly focussed in the following issues:

-          To provide commercial fishing vessels and logistics for deployment of observers

-          Collection and shipping of samples for scientific studies

-          Commercial data

-          Operational technical advice in different fishing grounds

-          Charter of commercial vessels for fishery research surveys

-           Unofficial collaboration with EU funded projects

Projects

From year 2000, ARVI has participated through its associated ANAMER as a partner in two fisheries research projects funded by the European Commission, contributing in addition to its co financing:

-          HAKES PROJECT aiming the assessment of two hake species in the SW Atlantic fishing grounds (Study Project DG FISH, EU). Project partner. 2000-2001

-          ROCKCOD PROJECT to Promote higher added value to a finfish species rejected to sea (CRAFT Project of Cooperative Research. V Framework Programme EU). Project Leader. 2003-2004

Besides its participation as a partner in he aforementioned projects, ARVI was also the leader of a granted proposal (EUREKA project FIS-SWAT) for the development of a system for fishery forecasting and support to fishery management by remote sensing, even the project could not be carried out due to budgetary problems.

HAKES Project: Data collection for stock assessment of two hakes (Merluccius hubbsi and M. australis) in international and Falkland waters of the SW Atlantic

§          Objectives

-          Description of the Spanish fisheries in the Patagonian shelf

-          Temporal and spatial patterns of the fisheries and life-cycles of the fished stocks

-          Trophic relationships of target species

-          Estimates of fishing mortality

-          Preliminary estimates of the size of the fished stocks of hake

-          Preliminary species- and area-specific estimates of by-catch rates

-          Analysis of relationships between different hake stocks in the study area

ROCKCOD Project: Promoting higher added value to a finfish species rejected to sea

§          Objectives

-          Description of the fisheries

-          Improved knowledge of the biology of the species

-          Biomass assessment

-          Estimation of catches and discards

-          Analysis of the spatio-temporal distribution of the resource

-          Fishery forecasting and testing

-          Sensorial, Microbiological, Nutritional and Biochemical Evaluation of Rockcod

-          Development of the technical modifications on board commercial vessels

-           Development of new processed products from frozen Rock cod

FISH-SWAT Project: Desarrollo de un sistema de predicción pesquera y de apoyo a la gestión de pesquerías por sensores remotos

§          Objetivos

-           Collect environmental data by remote sensors (satellites)

-           Collect fishery, biological and oceanographic data by scientific observers

-           Study and describe the spatio-temporal variability on the distribution of the main commercial species

-           Establish the patterns that relate species distribution with oceanographic conditions

-           Integrate oceanographic, fishery and biological data with stock assessment models in a global GIS