LIFE: working with fishers to keep marine fauna safe

Harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) like to hang out alone or in small family groups, keeping to shallow waters and posing no threat (unless you’re a fish — they can eat more than 500 fish per hour). Unlike dolphins they try to avoid human contact, yet thousands of harbour porpoises die every year in EU waters alone after getting tangled in fishing nets. 

LIFE CIBBRiNA aims to drastically reduce the number of endangered marine mammals, birds, turtles and sharks caught as bycatch every year across the North-East Atlantic, Baltic and Mediterranean seas. The project focuses on 8 case studies covering both small- and large-scale fishing operations across 10 EU Member states (Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Sweden), as well as Iceland, Norway and the UK. 

Trials involve a range of fishing gear including gillnets, deep-water longlines, surface longlines, pelagic trawls and bottom trawls. 

Last summer the project team headed for their first case study — the chilly waters off Iceland’s north coast — to test a new type of fishing net designed to reduce bycatch without reducing fish catches. The team also tested small acoustic pingers to deter porpoises from approaching the nets. 13 of these PearlNets were deployed, 5 of which were also fitted with pingers. Initial data looks promising — of 32 harbour porpoise bycatches, just 3 were in the PearlNets, and none in those with pingers. 

LIFE CIBBRiNA aims to work collaboratively with fishers, not against them. 

‘Having worked in international treaties for many years, I noticed policymakers, scientists and NGOs were often talking about fishers, but not with the fishers,’ says project coordinator Anne-Marie Svoboda from the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature. ‘CIBBRiNA was developed to work jointly with fishers from the very start, because they are instrumental to solve this problem.’ As one of the fishers involved commented, ‘We don’t want to kill porpoises unnecessarily – if there’s a way to avoid it, we’ll try it.’ 

Collaboration, says Anne-Marie, is key. ‘Fishers possess detailed insights into gear operation and bycatch risks in specific areas or seasons. These conversations build trust and create level playing fields between fisheries.’ 

LIFE CIBBRiNA has also produced Guidelines on principles of cooperation and best practices, best practices for effective stakeholder engagement and a series of YouTube videos featuring real-life stories of bycatch collaboration. Among other work, the consortium is organising a major joint international conference on bycatch of marine megafauna in 2027. ‘Our fundamental principle is to create an environment where all stakeholders feel safe enough to share their experiences, good or bad,’ she adds. ‘It is our ambition that this way of working will expand beyond the project.’ 

LIFE CIBBRiNA is one of several LIFE projects which support the EU Common Fisheries Policy, EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, EU Marine Action Plan and the recently-released guidance on Natura 2000 and fishing. The initiative is part of a consortium of EU-funded projects including REDUCE, Marine Beacon, Eco-catch, Marine Guardian, Sea4Future and LIFE Prometheus.