Marine guardian
Advancing Sustainable Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Conservation in the Atlantic and Artic Sea basin
Programme: HORIZON-MISS-2024-OCEAN-01
Duration: June 2025 – May 2029
MarineGuardian will, through a holistic approach, provide impact-driven solutions to reduce fisheries’ environmental impacts on marine species and habitats.
Current solutions for more sustainable fisheries exist but are fragmented and often lack real-time actionable insights for fishers and policymakers. MarineGuardian will advance tools, technologies, operational strategies, and enhance knowledge to accelerate the transition towards sustainable and economically viable fisheries. The project will deliver:
- innovative technologies to reduce and prevent incidental catches of sensitive species and juveniles,
- best practice guidelines for reduced discard and damage to catch,
- decision support systems for effective mitigation measures to protect sensitive marine ecosystems, whilst optimising fishing operations,
- new methods for data sharing in seafood value chains to ease corporate sustainability reporting and ecolabelling processes.
- A roadmap for sustainable fisheries will be drawn-up to demonstrate scalability and replicability of the solutions in line with the Mission Ocean objectives.
These will be co-developed with fishers, management authorities, and policy makers, tested in 6 case studies to demonstrate their feasibility and ensure long term viability of the European seafood sector.
The concept of MarineGuardian is summarised in the picture below
MARINEGUARDIAN KICK-OFF MEETING
The kick-off meeting took place on the 18-20th of June 2025. Nearly 70 participants from 21 organizations came together online for the meeting.
The virtual three-day event was filled with inspiring discussions and great energy.
Partners introduced their organisations and roles in the project. The work package leaders shared the overview of the work ahead and the next steps needed for collaboration. The case studies, which span across the whole Arctic and Atlantic Sea basin, were presented with their challenges and opportunities, and the detail of the multiple solutions that will be advanced, tested and demonstrated were presented. DG MARE, DG RTD and The European Climate, Infrastructure & Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) did also address the meeting to clarify EU expectations towards the project. Last but not least, Dr. Ray Hilborn, which is a part of the project’s External Advisory Group, provided inspirational message to the consortia, contemplating on how MarineGuardian can make a difference and contribute to changing the world in a positive way.
Socios
