New sustainable blue projects have been pre-selected for funding by the European Commission under the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF). They will share €14.5 million. The grant agreements are currently being prepared for signature.
These 22 projects are the results of a selection made under a call for proposal launched to accelerate the deployment of a sustainable blue economy across the EU and the Mediterranean.
They will work on a number of subject areas; innovation (de-risking investment in demonstration projects), environment (fighting marine litter and restoring ecosystems), co-operation for a sustainable blue economy and better ocean governance in the Mediterranean sea basin.
Projects expected to be funded under EMFF include an Easy Feed Eco-aquaponics systems, a 100% sustainable and profitable venture in Spain and Portugal to validate the use of an innovative aquaculture organic feed formula, based on locally grown quinoa and spirulina, to reduce the aquaculture sector’s dependence on marine resources.
Also in Spain and Portugal, SpecTUNA will automate tuna preparation prior to canning and provide information on the quality characterisation of each of the pieces by using hyperspectral image analysis and robotics.
In the UK and France, FTL-FISH will demonstrate the commercial viability of introducing light-emitting devices into fishing gear to lower non-target by-catch in fishing activities.
Several projects focus on the ongoing problem of marine litter, including Bluenet, a programme aimed at Spain and Italy for recycling abandoned, lost or discarded fishing and aquaculture gear, recovering gear from the sea and using it as raw material to manufacture new gear.
Focused on Portugal, the UK and Spain, the NetTag programme is designed to develop and test new technologies (acoustic device and robotic recovery system) to reduce lost gears and organise awareness-raising activities on marine litter for fishermen. The OceanNets venture, for Spain and the Czech Republic, is focused on developing an ICT tool to prevent fishing gear loss and optimise the recycling technologies to produce high-quality fabrics from plastic nets.
