Our researchers of the ParticiPESCA project went to Malta to present the project and share some of their results at the 4^th World Small-scale Fisheries Congress. Our researchers Sofia Alexandre and Luís Bentes talked about the co-management of octopus fisheries in the Algarve and the type of traps used in these fisheries.

Despite the high importance of octopus fishery in the Algarve, this fishery still has limited information and data. Thus, the ParticiPesca team developed a strategy in which for one year they followed the fisheries in real time and carried out an onboard observer campaign to gather spatial fishing behaviour and collect catch data.

The preliminary results provided valuable information regarding catches and bycatch/discarded species (species of no commercial interest that are discarded), the spatial distribution of juvenile and adult octopuses and fishing grounds. This new information significantly improves the strategy of co-management of the octopus fishery.

Octopus fishery in the Algarve is an important economic activity for several local fishing communities. Due to its rapid growth and short life cycle, special care is needto monitor and study of this fishery. The ParticiPESCA project aims at developing a co-management strategy for the octopus trap and pots fishery of the Algarve.