In Brief

Overview of the Project

ADRINET is a comprehensive group of actions focused to improve a joint coastal management system and to create governance plans to preserve biodiversity and coastal ecosystems of the Programme Regions, which share the same issues in terms of pollution, over-exploitation of fish stocks, illegal fishery, fish sophistication and ‘ghost fishing’ (i.e. marine litter and traps for other fish stock).

The Project considers the sea as a (water) landscape in which fishery represents the ‘human’ component. For this reason, fishermen will be involved in activities directed to coastal environment protection, participating in sea cleaning campaigns, in study visits and in training sessions about the use of innovative methodologies.

Furthermore, ADRINET will contribute in defining a common strategy and shared tools and documents (MoU, Protocol, ERMP, Handbook) in order to provide guidance on how to apply the various concepts of environmental and spatial assessment and planning in a risk management structure, focusing on the fishing impact on the environment. These tools/documents can be seen as a contribution that might be interesting for policy-makers working at different levels and scales.

ADRINET foresees investments in technologies, endowing fishing boats with RFID and GPS systems to map fishing routes and ghost-nets (making their management and rescuing easier after the project’s end), monitoring sea pollution, tracing fish caught and preventing over exploitation of the fish stocks.

Finally, ADRINET provides services, scientific support, and skills for fishery's professionals and for consumers, in order to make fish consumption safer and compliant with EU rules and guidelines. ADRINET is conceived and designed in a cross border mode. This not only because of the selected topic (environment) which is a cross-border matter by definition but also because of the partners involved in terms of competences (universities) and duties (PAs).

Background

Challenges to be tackled by ADRINET

Coastal zones are the most productive areas in the Programme Regions, offering a wide variety of valuable habitats and ecosystems services that have always attracted humans and human activities. But this intensive concentration of population and excessive exploitation of natural resources puts enormous pressure on our coastal ecosystems leading to biodiversity loss, habitats destruction, pollution, as well as conflicts between potential uses, and space congestion problems.

Because the well-being of populations and the economic viability of many businesses in coastal zones depend on the environmental status of these areas, it is essential to make use of long term management tools, such as integrated coastal management, to enhance the protection of coastal resources whilst increasing the efficiency of their uses. Integrated coastal management covers the full cycle of information collection, planning, decision-making, management and monitoring of implementation. It is important to involve all stakeholders across the different sectors to ensure broad support for the implementation of management strategies.

Coherent application with maritime spatial planning will improve the sea-land interface planning and management, such as for instance the protection of marine ecosystems. Marine litter and ghost-fishing, for instance, are some of the most relevant threats for the water landscape but the related information in our seas as well as in the Mediterranean, remains limited, inconsistent, and fragmented (Cozar et al.,2015; UNEP/MAP 2015).

Effective measures to tackle marine litter in the region are seriously hampered by the lack of reliable scientific data. Within this context the need for accurate, coherent, and comparable scientific data in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas is clear in order to set priorities for action and address marine litter effectively, thus ensuring the sustainable management and use of the marine and coastal environment of the Adriatic-Ionian macroregion.

6,000

parts of fishermen’s equipment endowed with microchips

3

sea bottoms cleaning missions

180

trained fishermen involved
  • University of Bari – Veterinary Medicine Department DIMEV

    UNIBA as lead partner will supervise all the research activities included in the project and partially to the project part referred as informing communities and orienting the consumption.
  • Municipality of Herceg Novi

    Municipality of Herceg Novi will support and contribute to implementation of the overall project activities, and we are also hosting an international event in Montenegro.
  • Municipality of Castro

    Fishermen represent an important constituency of Castro's population and history. Castro fishery system is trying to renew itself, finding new ways for a sustainable exploitation of the natural assets. This process is led by some very active and attentive Trade Unions and fishermen's association and consortia.
  • University of Montenegro - Institute of Marine Biology

    Core competencies of the University of Montenegro - Institute of marine biology lies in the comprehensive research of the marine and coastal area, which has its wide impact to the environmental protection and prevention of those areas. Institute has strong links with local and national community, through commitment to raising awareness on marine science.
  • Agricultural University of Tirana

    The human resources dedicated to the project include professors, researchers, fellowships, technicians highly qualified and with high professional experience at the national and international level
  • Regional Council of VLORË

    previous experience in implementing projects with funds from the programs of the EU and other donors, through the contribution and the expertise of its staff, as well as through the coordination of local actors and regional exchange of good practices in specific areas
PROJECT PARTNERS

Roles and responsibilities

Cross-border regions share rather similar natural characteristics both in terms of coastal as well as maritime resources. This will make the cooperation smooth since project teams will need to apply methodology in similar circumstances.

Main outputs

A Wide Range of Outputs

Project activities are dedicated to the better and more sustainable use of resources, both natural and human. In addition to the potentials of coastal and maritime capacities, we engage regional experts who are experienced in the field covered by this project. The goal is to connect these resources and use them for a single purpose.

main project output T1.1.1

Environmental Risk Management Plan (ERMP)

The lab analysis on the sea-water of the selected areas will be the basis of the Reports edited by the scientific Coordinator of LP together with scholars of PP 4 and PP5. This Report will be used for the elaboration of the Environmental Risk Management Plan which will be used for the pilot actions in WP T2 and WP T4.

main project output T2.1.1

Set up of 3 CRs

The Centres of References (CRs) are equipped public spaces (made available for free by the partners in each programme Country) where realizing training sessions for fishermen, Help-Desk services, events and informative campaigns about seabed and fishery management.

main project output T2.2.1

Fishermen Capacity Building Report

The Community Building consists in: A) Training sessions for min 40 fishermen in each CR on sustainable fishery and technological enhancement; B) 1 Help-Desk service to address issues and doubts in small group workshops/seminars or in 1-to-1mode. C) n.3 Site visits will be organised for 12 fishermen in the Programme’s Countries to let fishermen get in touch with their colleagues and communities in the other Countries and exchange experiences about fishing sector and sea-bed management.

main project output T2.6.1

Joint Coastal Management Tool

The tool starts from fishermen’s involvement and consists in A) 1 Survey to identify in GPS-mode fishing routes and places where ghost-nets are supposed to be abandoned. B) The surveys will result in 3 Community Maps. C) 1 Protocol on common strategies on joint coastal management and fishing-related issues will be signed by all partners. D) 1 Handbook on joint management of pollution-related related risks will be edited and published. The tool is inspired to C_FAR participative approach.

main project output T4.1.1

Ghost-nets removal and disposal through AGF actions + Scientific Monitoring Report

1 anti-ghost Fishing action (AGF) will be implemented in each selected area, conducted involving min. 40 fishermen and 20 fishing vessels per area (as the minimum crew of a vessel is 2 fishermen). Missions are made possible thanks to fishermen's involvement and training (WP T1 and T2). The ghost-nets removed will be properly disposes and possibly recycled. Universities will provide the scientific monitoring of the AGF actions with a Monitoring Report, which will summarize the results in 3 areas.

main project output T4.2.1

Pilot action: endowment of fishing equipment with RFID micro-chips

6K single parts of fishing gears/nets and fishing equipment like traps and lines (the average equipment of 60 small boats) will be marked with microchips to make possible their "localization" and "traceability" through RFID technology (radio frequency identification), thanks to the tasks of fishermen's involvement and training run respectively by WP T1 and WP T2. Microchips will be given to fishermen free-of-use and might be distributed also to those not directly involved in training activities.

main project output T3.1.1

Stakeholder's management Report

ADRINET aims at involving a relevant (min 10/country) number of agencies, PAs, NGOs who are external to the project's partnership. Engaging these newcomers is not easy and needs time and efforts in terms of meetings and PR. Each partner will be involved in this long-lasting action aimed at getting relevant local stakeholders to sign the project MoU, with the final purpose to define a common, multilateral and transborder policy for the sustainable use of fishing and for ghost-fishing tackling.

People

A Cross-Border Team Developing Joint Solutions for the Region

Considering that the transnational cooperation program is aimed at addressing common challenges that were identified in the region, we are acting together to enable better management and sustainable use of natural and human resources in order to contribute to the environmental protection of the region.

Activity Plan

Follow our path on improving of the joint coastal management system and creating of governance plans to preserve biodiversity and coastal ecosystems

  • A.T1.1 Data gathering, analysis and reporting

    May 2019
  • D.T1.1.1 Study on best practices

    January 2019
  • D.T1.1.2 Meeting Reports (WP T1)

    December 2018
  • D.T1.1.3 Lab analysis reports about the sea conditions

    May 2019
  • D.T1.1.4 Environmental Risk Management Plan (ERMP)

    May 2019
  • A.T2.1 Set-up and activities of CRs

    March 2020
  • D.T2.1.1 Set-up of 3 Centres of Reference

    July 2018
  • D.T2.1.2 Training activities and help desk

    March 2020
  • D.T2.1.3 Site visits

    December 2018
  • A.T2.2 SURVEY AND GPS MAPPING

    June 2019
  • D.T2.2.1 SURVEY

    October 2018
  • D.T2.2.2 GPS COMMUNITY MAPS

    June 2019
  • A.T2.3 Protocol on common strategies and Handbook

    December 2019
  • D.T2.3.1 Protocol

    December 2019
  • D.T2.3.2 Handbook

    December 2019
  • A.T3.1 Stakeholders' management. Concept and editing of a MoU to be signed by external stakeholders

    March 2020
  • D.T3.1.1 Memorandum of Understanding

    March 2020
  • A.T4.1 Sea-bed cleaning actions in the 3 countries

    December 2019
  • D.T4.1.1 Sea-bed cleaning missions

    December 2019
  • A.T4.2 Pilot project for the distribution and installation of RFID microchips

    December 2019
  • D.T4.2.1 Fishing equipment tracking

    December 2019
  • A.T4.3 Sea-bed cleaning actions scientific monitoring

    March 2020
  • D.T4.3.1 Scientific reports on the seabed cleaning actions

    July 2019

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