Netherlands (Bob van Marlen, IMARES)

In the Netherlands a number of industry/science projects have been undertaken in the last couple of years. These projects have been largely driven with industry needs to solve problems and clearly demonstrate innovative approaches by fishers. Many of these projects have been developed under the Dutch Fisheries Innovation Platform (VIP). These projects include the following:

Project: VIP SumWing

Comparative fishing trials were conducted on a beam trawler fishing with SumWings and a conventional beam trawler towing on parallel courses for a two week period in October 2008. The catches of both vessels were not significantly different, and the reduction in fuel consumption was 11% with the SumWing. The integration with pulse trawling promised further savings in fuel consumption (van Marlen et al., 2009b).

Project: VIP HydroRig

This project started in 2008. The objective is to replace the effect of tickler chains by water flow stimulation as shown in Figure 12. First attempts involved a wing-shaped beam deflecting the flow to the seabed. Later spherical cups were used to generate vortices in the wake. Laboratory tests at Deltares, Delft, Netherlands in 2009 showed their potential. Sea trials were positive at first with reasonably good plaice catches and considerably fewer benthic organisms. Comparative fishing trials with direct observation were done in May 2010 in collaboration with ILVO Ostend Belgium.

Figure 12. New design of HydroRig to be tested in 2010 (Source: R. van Urk, VCU-TCD Urk).

Project: VIP Outriggen 2008

Two commercial beam trawlers fished with so-called ‘outriggers’, small nets with otter boards replacing tickler chain beam trawls. Catches and bycatches were moni-tored in 2008 and 2009 in cooperation with ILVO Ostend. The method can be used to save fuel, and catch 1.4 times more plaice (Pleuronectes platessa L.). Catches of sole (Solea vulgaris L.) were considerably lower (16%) despite attempts to bring them to higher levels. Fuel consumption was reduced by 55%. However, using 80 mm codends can give high levels of undersized fish bycatch. More details can be found in (van Marlen et al., 2009c).

Project: VIP Passive Gear Development

A new project was started in 2010 with three vessels operating passive gears with the objective of developing year-round fishing opportunities for vessels using static gears. A separate research programme was set up for each boat testing gillnets, trammel nets, pots and jigging machines. Data will be collected using a predefined format and analysed by IMARES. Experience in Belgium (through ILVO) and Den-mark will also be sought.

Project: VIP ViBOS

This project aims at developing a data collection and decision support system for fishers. Three beam trawler skippers are involved. The project is coordinated by Chartworx Ltd. of Den Helder, the Netherlands. We aim bringing together data from various sources, e.g. DGPS, electronic sea charts with hydrographical data, vessel plotter, catches and bycatches (E-logbook), warp loads, fuel consumption, etc. The system will be made to optimize the skipper’s performance in terms of catches, fuel use and effects on the marine ecosystem.

Project: VIP Industry Survey: Phase 1

In 2009 the first phase of the Trajectory Industry Survey was carried out whereby fisheries managers, fishers and fisheries scientists investigated whether an industry survey, in addition to research surveys, would be useful in assessing plaice and sole stocks. How such an industry survey should be set up and how it may influence fish-eries management is being investigated based on similar initiatives in other countries.

The first phase showed that comparative fishing between research vessels and a commercial vessel is feasible and that there is sufficient support for an industry sur-vey from (international) scientists, fishery managers and fishers. A request for fund-ing of phase 2 was submitted in March 2010. In that phase the comparison of length frequencies of plaice and sole will be finalized.

Other Projects

In addition a number of projects have been completed in the Netherlands which also have had a high degree of industry input. These include:

• Project: ICES research on pulse trawling

• Project: Bycatch Reduction by Technical Means (Dutch: VDTN-3)

• Project: Energy Saving In Fisheries (ESIF)

• Project: Flatnose (FISH/2007/07 LOT3)

• Project: Development of fishing Gears with Reduced Effects on the Envi-ronment (DEGREE)

Details of these projects can be found in Section 19.6 in the National Report for the Netherlands.

In addition to these projects a number of industry networks have also been created to address fishery issues, provide a mechanism for fishers to input into the development of stock assessment surveys and also to generally improve dialogue between fishers and scientists. These include the following:

Project: Cooperative Research Platform

This project is all about cooperation between the Dutch Ministry for Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, the Dutch Fisheries Product Board and IMARES. This was set up in 2008. In the platform representatives of the fisheries, managers and scien-tists participate with the common objective of coordinating all ongoing projects that are relevant to management and to share information. Several issues are being dealt with in the Cooperative Research Platform, e.g. validity of research surveys, collabo-ration in discards monitoring, setting up an industry survey etc.

Project: Fishery Study Groups (‘Knowledge Circles’)

Fishery Study Groups are (study) groups of fishers who formulated challenges, ques-tions or problems in their fishery. Together they look for soluques-tions to make their fish-ery more sustainable: both from an economic and ecological point of view. There are currently 13 groups of fishers, working on various fisheries in the Dutch sea, lakes and rivers. Issues that are being dealt with are e.g.: gear development (pulse trawl, SumWing, outrigger, fly-shooting, static gear, Nephrops trawl and shrimp (Crangon crangon L.) trawl), reduction of bycatch or discards, increasing knowledge of target species, reduction of fuel costs and improving cooperation between fishers and re-tailers.

16.5.2 Belgium (Christian VandenBerghe, ILVO)