Fostering concerted and sustainable eel management in the SUDOE area

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The European eel is outside safe biological limits (ICES, 1998) and critically endangered (IUCN). It is threatened by climate change, migration barriers, pollution, unsustainable exploitation and illegal trade and fishing. Therefore, in 2007 the EU established a regulation (CE1100/2007) to ensure that every state develop an Eel Management Plan (EMPs). However, the stock, whose management is hampered by a number of factors, has not shown signs of recovery after the implementation of the regulation. The estimation of indices for monitoring is hampered by a lack of knowledge about the species. Furthermore, these indicators are obtained following different methodologies depending on the country and even the region, and in many cases based on extrapolations from other regions. Finally, although the eel of Spain, France and Portugal constitutes a single stock, it is managed at national and regional level as if it were isolated populations. The lack of dialogue, coordination and joint strategies among agents involved in eel conservation both between the different levels (local/regional/national) and typologies (scientific/manager/fishing company/NGO) means that measures are not taken in a coordinated manner. For all these reasons, SUDOANG intends to provide the managers of the SUDOE area with joint tools and methods to support the conservation of the European eel and its habitat. To achieve this, a user-friendly INTERACTIVE WEB APPLICATION will be created that will house several tools that will allow eel managers to study population monitoring indicators and different possible management scenarios. Thus, they will make decisions based on more scientific evidence and in a more concerted way, as all the indicators will be obtained using models and methodologies agreed between these agents. In addition, it will explore new management approaches that will lead to a proposal for a GOVERNANCE PLATFORM to achieve a concerted and effective management of eel that is not possible with the traditional approach.

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