For a collaborative bycatch mitigation project spanning 13 countries and 45 partner organisations, what are the key ingredients for a successful meeting? Clarity of purpose, dialogue, respect, patience, humility, integrity – and generous helpings of coffee and sunlight!
For the first time since our kick-off meeting in September 2023, the people behind CIBBRiNA had the chance to come together for our Spring Meeting 2025, held 8–10 April in Vigo, Galicia (Spain). With CETMAR as our capable host, a total of 72 people took part. The main aims of the meeting were to:
- Review project progress and our longer-term strategy.
- Prepare for upcoming deliverables and milestones.
- Keep fine-tuning our ways of working.
- Strengthen connections among and with our partners, sister projects and the Stakeholder Advisory Board.
The meeting also provided plenty of opportunity for deep thinking and discussion about our shared goals for bycatch mitigation and what collaboration truly means in practice. The tone was set by our first keynote speaker, Maria Hermida, vessel owner and CEO of Hooktone Group. Maria shared her experiences of nurturing trust and motivation among fishers and letting them take the lead on trying out different innovations. After Maria came Pablo Covelo, CEMMA coordinator for the Study of Marine Mammals. Pablo offered the perspective of drawing on strandings data to improve understanding of the “when” and “where” of bycatch and identify roles for different stakeholders in mitigation effort.
Following the keynotes, we spent most of the three days focusing on the activities of and connections between specific case study fisheries and work themes, including:
- Plans for research into the socio-economic – AKA the “human” – side of bycatch monitoring and mitigation.
- Addressing the complexities and trade-offs involved in analysing bycatch data and evaluating mitigation efforts.
- How we are enhancing our stakeholder engagement and communications via routes such as cross-sectoral capacity-building courses and gathering and synthesising experiences from other collaborations.
- How to ensure that the impact of CIBBRiNA lasts far beyond the project’s lifetime.
On Day 3 we heard a series of pitches from our sister projects including Marine Beacon, DELMOGES, REDUCE, and Marine Mobile Species (MMS). Representatives for these projects then took part in a panel that was expertly facilitated by the chair of our Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB), Katie Longo of the Marine Stewardship Council. Other members of the SAB joined online. Questions and discussion focused on topics such as sharing data and how best to synthesise and maximise the impact of the outputs of the different projects.
We rounded off the meeting by hearing reflections from every attendee about their experience of the last three days. We each left Vigo with heads full of new ideas and knowledge – but more than that, with a renewed appreciation for the following key lessons:
- While working with fishers is at the core of CIBBRiNA, every stakeholder has an important role to play.
- Failure should not be feared but embraced, and used to do things better next time.
- It is vital to find ambassadors to inspire others to implement effective methods, especially within the fishing industry.
- Achieving long-term impact can involve both top-down and bottom-up approaches – and will mean engaging a sufficiently wide range of marine stakeholders.
