The SEA4FUTURE project, of which TÜBİTAK MAM and Istanbul University are the Turkish partners, was launched to find solutions against overfishing and marine pollution in the Mediterranean. Within the scope of the project, 22 partners from 8 countries are collaborating on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey, where new generation fishing methods are tested and marine life is closely monitored.

Supported by the European Executive Agency for Climate, Infrastructure and Environment (CINEA) under the Horizon Europe mission “Reclaiming our oceans and waters”, the SEA4FUTURE Project has been launched as a comprehensive international initiative to accelerate the “Blue Transformation”, coordinated by the University of Alicante. The project aims to bring together 22 institutions from Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, France, France, Germany, Germany, Turkey and the United Kingdom to plan the activities to be carried out in the first phase of the kick-off meeting.

The project aims to address the environmental, economic and social dimensions of fishing activities in the Mediterranean Sea, and fishermen were targeted to be among the main stakeholders of the project studies. Within the framework of the project, citizen science approaches such as environmental DNA and genomic research were envisaged to be carried out together with sea trials of trawl and net systems with increased selectivity. Technical applications to reduce bycatch on sharks, rays, sea turtles and dolphins will be tested, supported by decision support models that allow scientists, decision makers and fishers to evaluate different management scenarios together.

The tools and methods developed under the project, which consists of eight work packages, will be tested in seven “Living Laboratories” in the Mediterranean and neighboring regions and scaled up regionally. The studies in pilot areas, including the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey, will be carried out under the coordination of TÜBİTAK MAM, with Istanbul University as the project partner in the Turkish applications; ecological and fisheries sampling in the pilot areas will be carried out by the joint operations of R/V TÜBİTAK MARMARA of TÜBİTAK MAM and R/V YUNUS-S research vessels of Istanbul University. Through these studies, it is aimed to enable a comparative assessment of different fishing methods and local conditions.

With the studies carried out during the SEA4FUTURE Project, it was aimed to develop and disseminate sustainable and feasible solutions against overfishing and marine pollution in Mediterranean fisheries.

Detailed information and updates on the project can be found on the website and social media accounts below:

• For SEA4FUTURE Project official website click here.
• To view SEA4FUTURE Project social media accounts:
  LinkedIn, Instagram