A series of two Workshops to develop a suite of management options to reduce the impacts of bottom fishing on seabed habitats and undertake analysis of the trade-offs between overall benefit to seabed habitats and loss of fisheries revenue/contribution margin for these options (WKTRADE3 STAKE).

Workshop 1. ICES organised a stakeholder workshop on the evaluation of trade-offs between fisheries value and seafloor impacts of mobile bottom contact gears. The aim of the workshop was to obtain inputs from stakeholders on 1) how to quantify fisheries value and seabed impacts, 2) what management options to evaluate to reduce the impact of mobile bottom contacting Gears on seabed habitats, and 3) how to present the trade-offs. Representatives of fisheries organisations, conservation NGOs and governmental managers and advisers discussed each of these topics. No attempts to reach consensus within and among groups were made, and a wide range of opinions was shared in the meeting. All groups mentioned the importance of maintaining ecosystem services, and the protection of particularly sensitive habitats. Most fisheries representatives emphasized the importance of maintaining flexibilities and livelihoods and expressed a preference for avoiding spatial management and prefer technical gear modifications instead. Conservation organisations expressed their opinion that spatial exclusions of fishing with mobile bottom-contacting gears are priority management measures. All groups agreed that prioritising low fishing effort cells for exclusion of fishing was the best approach to minimize seabed impact while maximizing fisheries value. Freezing the trawling to a historic footprint was not a preferred management option for any of the groups. The participants generally prefer maps over figures as a means of presenting trade-offs. These inputs will feed into analyses in a technical workshop where these trade-offs will be quantified for each management option, where tools and data are available. Where this is not possible, the workshop will identify science to develop to address currently unachievable scenarios and trade-offs.