Looking back at 2021
Although 2021 started with home office and restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we can look back at a year filled with exciting activities, discussions and work in the PICO project.
In September, Jannike Falk-Andersson took over as project manager, and the University of Cape Coast joined the consortium when Godwin Kofi Vondolia moved to Ghana earlier this year. A new consortium agreement was made to reflect these changes.
In October, we arranged two hybrid meetings in Tromsø. Together with the EISA project, an expert meeting with scientist knowledgeable about king and snow crab was arranged. The experts from Akvaplan-Niva, NIVA and the Institute of Marine Research had valuable inputs to the risk assessment survey (WP2) and stated preference study (WP3) which resulted in stimulating discussions. Following the expert meeting, PICO had the annual project meeting, where we reflected on the input from the experts and discussed the way forward in each work package.
Later in October and November, WP3 conducted focus groups in Fredrikstad, Alta and Vardø, as well as interviews in Tromsø to get feedback on the stakeholder survey from the general public. The focus groups gave us a lot of energy as the participants were very engaged and had a lot of useful input and reflections to our work. The survey is now ready for implementation and will be sent out to a group of respondents before Christmas for testing.
In December, the UArctic-IASC-PICO Global Ecological and Economic Connections in Arctic and Sub-Arctic Crab Fisheries Workshop was held online with crab researchers and stakeholders from around the globe. Topics that were discussed included the impact of market segmentation and diversification on coastal communities, and understanding interdisciplinary drivers of change, such as climate, fishing and other environmental factors. The participants contributed with their perspectives both during the workshop and before through short videos (Global Connections Crabs - YouTube).
By the end of the year, WP1 and WP4 have jointly discussed some exciting ideas for the participatory modelling to take place in PICO. This work will continue next year where we will explore new ways of getting input from stakeholders in research.
We wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and look forward to continuing the work in PICO together with stakeholders and the scientific community in 2022.
