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The Director General of Maritime and Fisheries Affairs of the European Commission, Mr. Joao Aguiar Machado, visited the European Fisheries Control Agency today with a view to have a good insight of the Agency activities and an exchange of ideas on the ongoing projects.
During his visit, the Director General could find out more about the operational activities of the Agency, its systems, the monitoring of the landing obligation and its contribution to the European Coastguard initiative.
Aguiar Machado highlighted the importance of the work of the Agency in assisting the European Commission and bringing Member States to work together to implementing the Common Fisheries Policy. He thanked EFCA staff for its commitment and congratulated them for their valuable work in joining the Coast Guard initiative.
“Your work is an extension of ours in Brussels, we are part of the same project,” said Mr. Aguiar Machado when addressing EFCA staff.
To mark the celebration of the international World Oceans Day, held every year on 8 of June, the agency organised an internal photo contest. The theme of the competition was "Wonders of the Oceans". The photo collage below reflects an arbitrary selection of photos from the finalists of the EFCA Photo Contest 2016.
As previously announced during the celebration of Europe Day, the European Fisheries Control Agency is sponsoring a mural, which main purpose is to highlight the importance of ocean sustainability, in collaboration with the programme of urban art launched by the City Hall of Vigo. The latter is contributing to the project by providing the materials, assembly and machinery.
The works to paint the mural have started this week. The project shares the same goal, that of raising awareness regarding ocean sustainability, as other international programmes such as Sea Walls Murals for Oceans, with whom the Agency has been in contact this year. In this way, the project serves its purpose to emphasize the need to protect our oceans through public art. In addition, the mural aims at making visible the work of the Agency in a city such Vigo, where the ocean plays an important role, as well as building ties with its citizens.
The mural will be located in one of the adjoining walls located closest to the ocean in Torrecedeira street number 4. Due to its European dimension, the project involves artists of three different nationalities: Fernandez & Gonzalez fom Vigo, known for their careers as plastic artists and for revitalising the cultural space of the Halcón Milenario, will paint one of the façades; the Portuguese artist Federico Draw, with recognized expertise in urban art in the neighbouring country and Europe, will bring to life the second façade; in addition, the Irish poet Keith Payne, in partnership with Proyecto Ewa, has written a poem dedicated to the sea which, translated into Galician, will raise the profile of this initiative.
Through this mural, the European Fisheries Control Agency aspires to demonstrate by means of audio-visual communication that art is able to convey the Agency’s ultimate goal, which main mission resides in the coordination of fisheries control: the need to ensure oceans sustainability over time.
"Operation" Sardinelle ", a fishery surveillance operation in which Member States of the Sub-regional Fisheries Commission (SRFC) cooperated to detect Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing, took place from 23 to 26 January 2020.
This fisheries surveillance operation was entirely funded by the European Union via the PESCAO program and coordinated and organized by the SRFC. This operation received technical support from EFCA and operational support from France. Representatives of the Fisheries Committee of the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) and of the Gulf of Guinea Inter-regional Network (EU-GOGIN) project participated to the surveillance operation as observers. All participating SRFC Member States made available their updated national list of authorized fishing vessels.
The technical equipment of the national Fisheries Monitoring Centres (e.g. VMS, AIS, radars) as well as the information from the Integrated Maritime Services and satellite images (Copernicus) provided by EFCA made it possible to direct the patrol means to the suspected vessels. Correlations conducted on images collected from "Open Source" satellite services, were also conducted by the SRFC.
The fishery surveillance operation resulted in 58 vessel inspections with the detection of 9 possible non-compliances which are the subject of an investigation by the competent authorities of the Member States concerned.
Covering an area of approximately 1.1 million square kilometers, including the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of Cabo Verde, Mauritania, Senegal and The Gambia, operation "Sardinelle" was coordinated from Senegal FMC and run by the staff of the MCS structures of the Member States involved.
Each SRFC Member State deployed a patrol vessel that patrolled their respective EEZ. The patrol vessel "FERLO" from Senegal and "CDT BOUAN" from the French Navy surveyed the EEZ of The Gambia. Two fishing inspectors from The Gambia were assigned to each of these patrol vessels.
The operation "Sardinelle" was another action organized under the PESCAO project that meets the broader objective of the project, which is the sustainable development and management of fisheries in the West African region. This fisheries surveillance operation complements those already carried out in 2018 and 2019 in the SRFC area.
Denmark has established a new Real-Time Closure in the North Sea for juvenile fish starting from 13/01/2024 to 02/02/2024 23:59 hrs.
Denmark has established a new Real-Time Closure in the North Sea for juvenile fish starting from 21/01/2024 to 12/03/2024 23:59 hrs.
Denmark has established a new Real-Time Closure in the North Sea starting from 22/02/2024 to 13/03/2024 23:59 hrs.
Denmark has established a new Real-Time Closure in the North Sea starting from 10/03/2024 to 30/03/2024 23:59 hrs.