IHCantabria starts PLATICAS project to support Sustainable Blue Growth in the Spanish Atlantic regions 

At a time when the food production system determines both carbon emissions and the accelerated loss of biodiversity, preserving and increasing the natural capital of the seas and oceans is essential to ensure the continued provision of valuable ecosystem services. To help achieve this, José Antonio Juanes, Professor of Hydraulic Engineering at the Universidad de Cantabria, points out that “this project aims to develop an inter-territorial platform for communication between the different Blue Growth knowledge areas, which are all those related to the Atlantic area, in this case, from the Basque Country to the Canary Islands”. 

This platform to support the standardisation, integration, management, communication and transfer of knowledge on Sustainable Blue Growth is created to optimise the sustainable management of fishing, shellfish and aquaculture activities in the Atlantic area, to promote intersectoral and inter-institutional collaboration, to find joint solutions to common problems, and to establish a roadmap for the development of the seven Blue Growth Knowledge Spaces in the Spanish Atlantic. 

Specifically, the project focuses on the following specific objectives: to generate a virtual space for collaborative work and learning between partners; to document and disseminate the diversity of spatial management practices in fisheries, shellfish farming and aquaculture; to determine the challenges and consequences of climate change in these sectors; to design a coordination network for the management of invasive alien species, and to establish a baseline to guide the training strategy on Sustainable Blue Growth. 

This project is coordinated by the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics of the University of Cantabria, leader of the Cantabria Knowledge Area. It has as partners those responsible for the rest of the areas declared by the Ministry in each region, including the AZTI Foundation in the Basque Country, the University of Oviedo in the Principality of Asturias, the Port Authority of Vigo and the Sea Technology Centre-CETMAR Foundation in Galicia, the University of Cadiz in Andalusia, and the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN), in this case in collaboration with the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, on the island level. 

National Network of Knowledge Spaces  

The PLATICAS project is part of the National Network of Knowledge Spaces, promoted by the Directorate General for Fisheries and Aquaculture of the General Secretariat for Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It is an instrument for learning organised as a channel for information, communication and dissemination of activities to contribute to the transfer of knowledge within the framework of the blue growth strategy.  

These structures – made up of professionals, fishermen’s associations, research centres or companies, etc. – act as a catalyst for progress towards a blue economy based more on the fisheries sector, understood in an inclusive sense: not only extractive fishing but also marine and inland aquaculture, and the processing and marketing of its products.