[Digest] Study presentation: Impact of the use of offshore wind and other marine renewables on European fisheries

The study on Impact of the use of offshore wind and other marine renewables on European fisheries provides an overview of general impacts of the development of offshore wind farms and other marine renewables on the European fishing sector. It further highlights pathways for possible co-existence solutions of both sectors, a description of best practice examples and lessons learnt, the identification of research gaps and last but not least the presentation of policy recommendations. The presentation of the study took place on 27 October 2020 proposing the following three main recommendations for EU policy-makers both at national and EU level:

• To promote standardised monitoring programmes and a harmonisation of fishing effort data to enable cumulative ecological and socio-economic environmental impact assessment of the expansion of marine energy.
• To enable more research to understand the effects of OR installations on the fishing sector, local communities and economic activities onshore
• To develop best practice guidance for marine spatial planning on the implementation of mitigation measures to ease conflict potential between fisheries and OR development.

The presentation was followed by questions from the Members and a stimulating debate. Further reading: Impact of the use of offshore wind and other marine renewables on European fisheries  Presentation: Watch video of the event (with multilingual interpretation):