The director of the university institute, Ricardo Haroun, and the BIOCON Group researcher José Juan Castro gave two talks at this event, with more than 120 participants, the official start of the MPAs Canary Islands project, in which more than 35 international experts from institutions, universities, scientific foundations, environmental organisations and local, national and European public administrations took part.
The researchers of the ECOAQUA University Institute, belonging to the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), Ricardo Haroun, director of the aforementioned institute, and Professor José Juan Castro, member of the Biodiversity and Conservation Group (BIOCON) of ECOAQUA and, currently, director of the Department of Biology of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), director of the Biology Department of the ULPGC, participated in the International Congress of Marine Protected Areas Gran Canaria 2025 (MPA Connect 2025) held recently at the Hotel Cristina by Tigotan in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria as part of the public presentation of the MPAs Canary Islands project.
Both researchers participated with presentations entitled “Marine spatial planning and marine protected areas”, by Ricardo Haroun, and “A reflection on the role of marine reserves in the gear of fisheries management”, developed by José Juan Castro.
The event was attended by more than 35 international experts from local, national and European institutions, universities, scientific foundations, environmental organisations and public administrations. More than 120 participants registered for the sessions held over the two days.
MPA Connect 2025 is the first international conference promoted by the MPAs Canary Islands project, coordinated by Octavio Llinás and the result of a consortium made up of the ULPGC, the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (Germany), the University Foundation of Las Palmas and the support of the philanthropic organisation Oceans 5, which places the Canary Islands, according to this organisation, ‘at the centre of the global debate on the conservation of the oceans’.
The presentations by ECOAQUA researchers took place on the second day of the congress in block 3 entitled “Emerging and Compatible Activities”, specifically in session 5 dedicated to “Interaction and Social Perception” and in session 6 which focused on “Interaction with Fishing Activity”.
Blue growth
In his presentation, Haroun spoke of ECOAQUA's ‘important role, both nationally and internationally, in the development of the European strategy for Blue Growth, as well as in research for the sustainable exploitation of aquatic resources, establishing itself as a leading international platform for marine research and cooperation’.
ECOAQUA Director Ricardo Haroun during his speech.
The director of ECOAQUA pointed out that, through an ‘integrated, sustainable, inclusive and responsible management of biodiversity and marine resources’, the institute develops its activity in different areas of knowledge such as aquaculture welfare, physical oceanography, fisheries conservation, ecophysiology and the study of the impact of microplastics, as well as the different legal and social aspects related to the marine environment, among others, through these five groups, respectively: the Aquaculture Research Group (GIA), the Physical Oceanography and Applied Geophysics Research Group (OFYGA), the Biodiversity and Conservation Group (BIOCON), the Ecophysiology of Marine Organisms Group (EOMAR), and the Tourism, Territorial Planning and Environment Research Group (TOTMA).
Among the contributions of ECOAQUA, Haroun cited some examples such as the research carried out for the genetic improvement of shrimp production worldwide, as well as other aquaculture species, or those carried out on biodiversity and ecosystem services for Marine Spatial Planning, of international reference, based on the main maritime sectors described in the European Union's MSP directive (aquaculture, biotechnology, coastal and maritime tourism, mineral resources, renewable energies).
He also stressed that the ULPGC university institute is a major player in such important projects worldwide as “The Angel Shark Project”, “Rays of Paradise” and RETORESEAS (“Black Coral Forests”), among many others.
In his speech, Haroun said that the Canary Islands and their surrounding waters are ‘recognised as a biodiversity hotspot with threatened species and key benthic habitats’. ‘Marine turtles, seabirds, marine mammals (cetaceans and seals), as well as various fish species, some of them threatened, are distributed and migrate along biological corridors in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean,’ he said.
Therefore, the ECOAQUA director emphasised the need for "transboundary marine spatial planning initiatives to promote conservation measures that take into account migratory corridors and oceanographic features. He pointed out the opportunity that the MPAs Canary Islands project represents to promote ‘the participation of the different stakeholders in joint actions linked to the new Agreement on Biological Diversity beyond national jurisdictions’.
In his presentation, ECOAQUA researcher José Juan Castro argued that the Canary Islands, despite being one of the national territories with the largest protected marine areas, ‘this protection does not seem to be clearly reflected in the state of ecosystems and species’.
ECOAQUA researcher José Juan Castro during his talk.
In his opinion, the majority of fish species are overexploited or at their maximum exploitation levels". In addition, he said, ‘there is scientific evidence that there has been a significant loss in fishing productivity, which on some islands is almost 90% lower than that determined in 1970’.
Fisheries management model
In his words, "the current fisheries management model does not achieve the sustainability objectives expected of it. In this sense, he explained that "Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) should be the point of reference for the indicators used in fisheries management to assess the health and state of fish stocks: the F/FMSY - the relationship between fishing mortality (F) and the fishing mortality that produces the maximum sustainable yield (FMSY) - and the B/BMSY - the relationship between the current biomass (B) and the biomass that allows the maximum sustainable yield (BMSY).
In this way, he considered, it would be possible to ‘estimate the evolution of the virgin (unexploited) biomass, and to graduate Fisheries Management by applying the Precautionary Criteria (FAO, 1995)’ such as that ‘the spawning biomass should be kept above 50% of the biomass that would correspond to the unexploited stock; that fishing mortality should be kept low, below natural mortality; that intensive fishing of immature individuals should be avoided; or that habitats should be protected’.
For José Juan Castro, the fisheries management alternatives for the Canary Islands should, in the short term, "establish a scientific support system that allows for a permanent re-analysis of biological, fisheries, socio-economic and environmental information (eyeballing is not an adequate method), set minimum catch sizes (L95) for all species, establish an exhaustive control of all species, and establish a system that allows for a permanent re-analysis of biological, fisheries, socio-economic and environmental information (eyeballing is not an adequate method), set minimum catch sizes (L95) for all species, to carry out an exhaustive control of all catches, including recreational catches, live bait and discards‘, or ’to establish no-fishing MPAs on all islands (10% of the shelf), as well as ‘an aid plan that will allow small-scale fishing to successfully face its transition towards sustainability’, among other aspects.
In the medium term, he believes that it will be ‘necessary to implement a model of co-management of fisheries on an island scale’, in which informed and trained Citizen Participation is ‘a fundamental element in the management and conservation of natural areas and of the cultural and social heritage that develops in their environment, since without social involvement any management strategy is doomed to failure’.
In addition to ECOAQUA, the congress included presentations by representatives of entities such as Blue Nature Alliance, Oceans 5, the Government of the Azores, the Nord University (Bodo, Norway), the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Ministry for Ecological Transition, the Directorate General of the Merchant Navy and the Autonomous Organism of National Parks, as well as Global Fish Watch, the Jocoloco Foundation of Galapagos (Ecuador) and several NGOs linked to the conservation of marine biodiversity.
The MPA Connect 2025 conference is part of the first public actions of the MPAs Canary Islands project, which aims to "actively contribute to the expansion, improvement and governance of Marine Protected Areas in the archipelago, where currently only 5% of marine areas have effective protection. The aim is to reach 10% in the coming years and move towards real, effective conservation, with the participation of society."
More information: