Market opporTUNAties: Adicionar valor a uma pescaria de atum sustentável e bem gerida

Despite Portugal being the top EU seafood consumer (56,52 kg/capita/year), consuming more than double the EU-27 average [8] there is limited knowledge concerning the seafood system and value chain of fisheries resources [9, 10]. The lack of such knowledge jeopardizes the efficient use of fisheries resources [11]. The most important tuna species for Portugal, skipjack and bigeye are targeted by the pole-and-line fleet which operates in the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira. Due to the many positive characteristics of pole-and-line tuna fishing, especially its social and environmental attributes, a significant effort to promote pole-and-line tuna fishing has been made in the past years [4]. Also, the sustainability of this technique is related with its high selectivity compared with other tuna fishing methods [5]. Decision making needs to adopt a multidimensional view incorporating not only ecological, but also socioeconomic, community and institutional plans for the whole system [12]. To fill in the current gaps in knowledge, the project aims to understand the entire tuna value chain, identifying problems and opportunities, contribute to the valorization and management of these resources, enhancing the industry’ capacity to add value to tuna while assuring sustainable fishing. The specific objectives of the research project are to: 1. Analyse the value chain of the two most important tuna species: skipjack and bigeye tuna. This analysis will track the selected species from “sea to plate”, promoting tuna traceability, and will also analyse drivers of change, pressures and the role of key-actors within the value chain (i.e., fishers, traders, wholesalers, processors); 2. Identify problems, weaknesses, and opportunities to improve the value chain and relations between key-actors, contributing to improve seafood governance. 3. Develop a management plan for islands tuna catches and management of the quota attributed to Portugal. 4. Co-develop, with resource-users, strategies for increasing the economic value of tuna both in terms of market, through the development of new tuna products, and in terms of on-board handling enabling the value to be added at the first stage of the value chain. 5. Synthesize findings, make recommendations and deliver advice on public knowledge about the sea and strategies towards sustainable economic viable fishing, to different stakeholders of the tuna value chain (resource-users, middlemen, policy-makers and the scientific community). The project will be divided into six tasks: Task 1 – value chain: tracking tuna “from sea to plate”, which will contribute to Obj. 1 and 5; Task 2 – weaknesses and opportunities of the tuna fishery, which will contribute to Obj. 3 and 4; Task 3 – measures towards sustainability of the tuna fishery, which will contribute to Obj. 3 and 4. Task 4 –valorization of tuna, which will contribute to Obj. 4 and 5. Task 5 - coordination, synthesis, recommendations and dissemination, which will contribute to Obj.5.