Report on validation in pilot case studies

In 2019, a wide-ranging Landing Obligation (LO) is to be fully in place within the European Union, ensuring that all fish that is hauled on board fishing vessels operating in European waters is brought to shore (with few minor exceptions). To be able to fulfil these requirements, fishermen and stakeholders operating in various fishing industries will need to have viable solutions for what to do with the excess catch and that is the focus of this report. The report focuses on four different fishing fleet sectors and two national examples that represent a good cross-section of European fisheries, varying in size and operation. The report is structured in such a way that each case is independent, which allows the reader to choose what case studies to read. This does however mean that there is some repetition when reading the report as a whole. The six case studies presented in this document are small-scale coastal vessels, intermediate size bottom trawlers / Danish seiners, large-scale fresh fish bottom trawlers, and large factory bottom trawler; as well as national examples/analysis of how the Greek and the Irish fishing sectors could attempt to meet the requirements of the Landing Obligation. The first four cases are presented with detailed 3D drawings of the vessels along with renders of images and videos on the DiscardLess webpage http://www.discardless.eu which enables stakeholders to see the results in a visual manner. Furthermore, a cost-benefit tool can be found on the website as well, which makes it possible to get raw estimates on return of investment based on the fleet type and gear chosen. All the solutions presented are currently available on-board fishing vessels and are being used by several fleet segments and therefore the focus was on making them realistic and feasible to implement. The solutions focus largely on separating between the target catches and the unwanted catches and to provide alternatives for processing and storing under Minimum Conservation Reference Size catches as well as unwanted, unavoidable catches. These categories cannot be utilized for direct human consumption according to the Landing Obligation of the EU Common Fisheries Policy. Given the current status of the EU fisheries and seafood sector and how it is adapting to the Landing Obligation, it is the opinion of the authors of this report that there is a need for implementing short-term simple solutions to meet the requirements of the Landing Obligation; but that strategies for long-term solutions need also to be drafted. The main emphasis of this report is on short-term solutions in the form of silage, fishmeal and fish oil production that can be implemented immediately. The report does though also identify and discuss more complicated long-term solutions that require significant investment and forward thinking of everyone in the value chain