Bycatch And Discards: Management INdicators, Trends and locatiON (BADMINTON): Final report

Discarding keeps being an important issue in world fisheries; it is a way for fishers to adjust their landings to the legal and market constraints, but is largely considered as a waste of rare natural resources and as contributing to the depletion of stocks bearing a high fishing pressure. Many jurisdictions, including the European Commission, are preparing regulations to reduce or ban discards. To design effective regulations, an understanding of the extent and processes of the issue is required. The MariFish BADMINTON project aimed to build up the knowledge of discarding patterns and factors in European fisheries, evaluate the efficacy of selective devices and other discard management measures that have been implemented in the past, and improve methods to analyse, monitor, and manage bycatch and discarding. Specific objectives included the provision of discard estimates for selected European fisheries, and of appropriate indicators; the determination of the most important factors affecting discard amounts and composition; and the elaboration of integrated management approaches to the discard issue