Maximizing yield of fisheries while balancing ecosystem, economic and social concerns (MYFISH) (38850)

The European Common Fisheries Policy has made a commitment to direct management of fish stocks towards achieving Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) by 2015 (or no later than 2020 in special cases). Attaining this goal is complicated by lack of common agreement on the interpretation of both ‘sustainability’ and ‘yield’, and because achieving MSY for one stock may affect the possibility of achieving MSY for other stocks and compromise ecological, environmental, economic, or social aims.
The objective of MYFISH was to face these difficulties and provide definitions of MSY variants, evaluations of the effect on ecosystems, economy and social aspects of attaining these variants, their social desirability and an operational framework for their implementation.
This was achieved through cases addressing a range of fisheries in all European regional areas. The cases cover situations ranging from data-poor to the most studied and well-understood marine ecosystems in EU waters. The suggested implementation of MSY builds on the existing ecosystem and fisheries models in the cases, modified to perform the maximization of the relevant yield measure operationally. Social aspects were integrated throughout the project by active involvement of stakeholders in the definition and evaluation of MSY variants. Global experience was engaged through associated partners and communication of results was enhanced through two major events, a dedicated MYFISH/ICES symposium in 2015 and a targeted policy meeting in 2016. More details can be found at www.myfishproject.eu.
The project was coordinated by DTU Aqua.
The project was funded by EU, Framework Programme 7.