Input from Stakeholders Clause Samples

Input from Stakeholders. ‌ To drive the development of mesopelagic fisheries forward, it is essential to gather different stakeholders together, to discuss possibilities and limitations in the industry. Several workshops and meetings have been performed as part of WP3 in the MEESO project to facilitate interaction and discussions between different stakeholders that are relevant with respect to possible mesopelagic fisheries. A summary will be given below: An industry workshop was held on the 29th of March 2021. The workshop was held by researchers from Wageningen University on behalf of the MEESO project, hosted using Microsoft Teams, lasting 3.5 hours. The workshop successfully brought together different stakeholders from six European countries, and approximately 45 people participated from Norway, Iceland, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Spain. The workshop consisted of presentations, breakout sessions targeting relevant questions/problems, and a plenary discussion. The objectives of the workshop were as follows: • To bring stakeholders from the fishing industry, processing companies, gear manufacturing companies, and research together to share insights and develop contacts • To understand country-specific factors and interests regarding fishing in the mesopelagic zone • To gather questions that stakeholders have about the mesopelagic zone and offer preliminary answers • To understand which questions are of greatest priority for the various stakeholders. A joint meeting was held in November 2021 between AZTI’s researchers from both MEESO and SUMMER projects, and stakeholders of the Cantabrian Sea case study: a fishmeal processor partner (▇▇▇▇▇) in SUMMER and a fishing company (Velaspex). The most important logistical aspects on land and at sea that can affect the viability of using this resource as a raw material for fish meal and fish oils were discussed. The primary takeaways from the discussion were: • Due to the rapid degradation of the biomass, it is not clear if commercial fishing can be profitable without a processing plant on board. • Existing Basque fleets might not be suitable for implementing an onboard processing plant, and the investment cost for that is high. The low price of the mesopelagic resource calls into question the recovery of such investment. • The main problem from the side of processing cost is the high-water content (expensive drying technology), and how to deal with ice in case of storage of fish with ice on board. • It is important to clarify ...