Promotion

A four-year project to bring participative local development to the Kerkennah islands has proved that CLLD can be a valuable tool beyond the shores of Europe. Funded by ENPARD under the EU’s neighbourhood policy, the project, known as DEVLOK, has invested around €1.2M in these Tunisian fishing communities, diversifying the local economy and creating 47 new companies and 89 jobs.

The Carp Valley FLAG strategy has a clear focus on encouraging local entrepreneurship. The area, highly dependent on inland fisheries and aquaculture, uses its products as an engine for diversification, tourism promotion and awareness-raising about the assets of the territory.

Three Slovenian FLAGs are implementing a collaborative assessment of fisheries products to establish a quality system for fish products produced in Slovenia.

The Ostrobothnia FLAG supported a project getting local community members and migrants to create innovative recipes from underused fish species. As a result, the consumption of less valued fish increased, and the cultural interaction and integration of migrants improved.

Two FLAGs in Poland have joined efforts to implement a project promoting the fishing potential of two different regions. By focusing on their areas of greatest expertise, the FLAGs made a greater impact in their respective localities.

The professional line fishers’ association of the Brittany region has run a communication campaign to promote line-caught fish. Two FLAGs cooperated to support this campaign that highlights the environmental sustainability and quality that are associated with this way of fishing.

The professional line fishers’ association of the Brittany region has run a communication campaign to promote line-caught fish. Two FLAGs cooperated to support this campaign that highlights the environmental sustainability and quality that are associated with this way of fishing.

Cooperation is strongly encouraged by the programme authorities in France and FLAGs were required to lay out their plans for cooperation within their local development strategies in their bid to gain EMFF funding. In some cases, cooperation is viewed as a transversal tool to strengthen the impact of all areas of FLAG work and, in other cases, cooperation is programmed as an area of work in its own right with specific objectives.

Two neighbouring FLAGs cooperate to support a mobile phone app, MonPêcheur, to connect local fishers with consumers by providing them with an online platform for communicating, promoting, and selling their catches directly to the consumer.

To support the economic revival of the local fishing sector following the COVID-19 crisis, the local fishing communities of the Hauts-de-France region have launched a weekly column in newspapers to promote their seafood products.