HERRING - Joint cross-border actions for the sustainable management of a natural resource. This research project focuses on the development of strategy options and joint recommendations for an improved management of coastal areas as spawning habitats. The goal is to improve the sustainable management of the South Baltic region's ecosystem resource herring and with it, the reproductive capacity of the species and the success of future sustainable herring fisheries.

Coastal areas play an important role in the Baltic Sea ecosystem and provide habitat for a great variety of living organisms. However, Baltic shorelines are also important areas for human activities and as such are of high economic interest. They increasingly support human uses and claims for space through transport, fishing, tourism, and energy generation and supply activities. HERRING looks at a typical ecosystem resource where these demands for space collide: coastal spawning grounds. The herring is a meaningful example to look at as the species plays a crucial role in the food chain and the marine ecosystem, and has a long tradition as food fish. Spawning and nursery habitats for the Baltic herring are found in south Baltic coastal waters, particularly in the German Greifswalder Bodden, the Polish Vistula Lagoon and the Swedish coast of Blekinge and Skåne, all working as regional case studies in this project.

HERRING aims at an improved integrated management of coastal ecosystems and of one of their key natural resources, herring. The activities will compile knowledge for the coastal case studies on their ecological condition, on the impacts of human activities and on the multi-level institutions (regional, national, international) and management instruments governing the use and protection of coastal herring spawning grounds. On case study level, findings will be discussed between scientists, fishermen, coastal management and planning authorities on a regional, and then transferred to the transnational level, and be exchanged between case studies and countries to identify best-practice and possible intervention points for the introduction of new and improved forms of resource governance.

Contractor
EUCC - The Coastal Union Germany
European Union

Partners Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries
National Marine Fisheries Research Institute

Project Duration
July, 2012 to October, 2015