Significant progress is being made in the development of bycatch reduction technologies (BRTs), offering promising solutions to one of fisheries management's most persistent challenges. From gear modifications that enhance species release to cutting edge integrations of AI and image recognition, the potential to reduce bycatch, whether of sensitive spices, juvenile fish or non-target organisms, is as important as ever. However, technological innovation alone is not enough. Without widespread adoption, these advances cannot deliver real-world impact.
This session will explore the critical intersection between innovation and implementation. Adopting the PESTEL framework (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal factors) we invite contributions that examine real-life examples of the successful use of BRTs. This includes identifying; barriers to uptake, strategies to overcome barriers, drivers that foster uptake across fisheries, and how such drivers could be adopted more widely to facilitate gear uptake. With transdisciplinary experiences from researchers, technologists, policymakers and industry stakeholders the session will help us identify how to turn innovation into impact.
We invite contributions on the following topics:
- Political perspectives - e.g. changes in leadership and political trends including marine spatial protection goals that have impacted gear uptake.
- Economic perspectives – e.g. return on investment, data required to support business plans and other potential economic gains or losses from the use of BRTs.
- Social perspectives – e.g. how to raise awareness, foster industry interest and promote co-design processes in addition to social science perspectives that shed light on community dynamics, peer influence and collective action.
- Technical perspectives – e.g. issues relating to scalability, real-world usability and seasonal performance of BRTs.
- Environmental perspectives - e.g. foreseen environmental and stock benefits and/or trade-off effects.
- Legislative perspectives – e.g. regulatory incentives that can drive or impede uptake.
- Contributions can include reflections and evidence-based analyses drawing from real-world case studies and experiences.
