Media Event 2010
Work package leader: Oddmund Otterstad, NTNU
Participants: All partners
Participants roles:
DDNI – Development of new group, research and application of research findings
NIVA – Research into novel sturgeon viewing techniques
NTNU – Host research students, research into the social consequences and potential of the sturgeon fishery ban
Duration: two years
Objectives: The main objective of this work package is to explore the importance of the sturgeon fish resources for the human settlements in the Danube delta, with special emphasis on the present ban of sturgeon fishery and the consequences for the people (comprising about 15.000 inhabitants) living in the delta area. The aim is also to investigate changes in the public attitudes to the fishery regulation regime and possibly to improve the compliance of the local population to the new policy of sustainable fishery management, which is the argument for the ban of sturgeon fishery.Practical measures for compensation and compensatory activities are here crucial to change the local attitudes. To develop adventure tourism based on sturgeon knowledge is perhaps the most important compensatory activity. The goal is to generate new jobs and new income instead of illegal fishery. The diverse experiences gained with this research on anthropogenic impacts in the Danube delta area will be used to set up a new applied research group at DDNI in Tulcea. Such a group is highly prioritised by the institute (see reference letter).
Methodology: Use experiences from similar former projects in Norway, mobilise master students from Romania to enrol in the new International Master Programme at NTNU (The Marine and Coastal Development programme), present these studies for the public in Romania, and gradually, by the help of these students and others, establish an applied research group at DDNI providing the institute with more cross-disciplinary projects with social science involvement. In the course of the project it should also extend and improve the relations between the DDNI and the human settlements in the Danube delta. This new research group shall interact closely with other groups at DDNI, as well as researchers from NTNU and NIVA. The measures suggested for initiation of such a group through this two and a half year project are expected to be sufficient for establishing an economically viable unit, taken the situation with high priority of such research in the Danube delta and good prospects for spin-off projects with other funding.
The latter four subtasks (2.2, 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5) will all be used to attract intelligent and motivated Romanian master students to be accepted for the new international master in Coastal development at NTNU. Through the NRC-project ‘Releasing development potentials at the coast: A contribution to sustainable development at the Eastern Adriatic’ (see www.easternadriatic.com) NTNU had similar master and PhD students in a former West-Balkan project. Therefore, the procedures of such arrangements are well known. The program starts formally this autumn (2008), so the four students would be recruited to start working at NTNU in August 2009 for a period of two years. They will remain connected to their previous universities in addition to their academic environments at NTNU. Course studies in Norway will be combined with fieldwork in Romania later in the MSc programme. Students will be provided with subsistence grants (of just under €1000 per month). Following the MSc these people will be an important staffing resource for the new applied research group at DDNI, to add to the group that will be developed over the same period, based on the personnel from NTNU and other personnel present at DDNI today.
Deliverables:
• Four master thesis reports from the International Marine & Coastal Development programme at NTNU.
• Popularised versions of the results to be published in Romanian and presented to the communities involved through local meetings and the project’s Web-site.
• International standard Scientific articles will be produced based on the same materials.
• Development of cross-disciplinary project proposals for DDNI in collaboration with NIVA and NTNU, targeted for European Union or other international funding.
• Survey on local attitudes to fishery management at the start and at the end of the project.
• Report documenting compensatory issues related to the sturgeon ban, specified for the various villages in the delta area (targeted information to the authorities both in Romania and the EU).
• Special case study of the village of Sfantu Georghe with analysis of how this village might develop adventure tourism based on sustainable use of sturgeon resources.
• Offer the practical results of this broad analysis of Sfantu Georghe to help other communities in the delta area to develop similar local initiatives of sustainable tourism, involving tourism, fisheries and other sectosr found to be important for sustainable development of the societies.
