With its future sentinel research center in M’diq
Transformation : The National Fisheries Research Institute relies on an approach of adaptation and innovation in order to anticipate the changes that the fishing sector in particular is undergoing. Thus, he intends to set up a center specializing in sentinel fishing and aquaculture in M’Diq. This project, in the feasibility study phase, aims to support the current development of aquaculture activities and the process of transforming fishing systems towards sustainable practices.
More than ever, a compromise between economic issues and the urgency of protecting and conserving fishery resources and marine ecosystems is necessary. To respond to marine environmental challenges while taking into account the economic and industrial ambitions of the fishing sector, Morocco is banking on scientific research. In this sense, INRH wants to strengthen its potential in the field of sentinel research. He plans to set up a center specializing in sentinel fishing and aquaculture in M’diq.
This project is part of its strategic development plan for 2030 aligned with the orientations of the New development model, the renewed Halieutis plan and the blue economy program. This strengthening is based, as the INRH specifies, on the development of a structuring project which consists of the transformation of the Center specialized in animal husbandry and marine aquaculture engineering into a sentinel fishing and aquaculture center which aims to strengthen research proximity and complement the existing aquaculture research effort through supporting the current development of aquaculture activities and the process of transforming fishing systems towards sustainable practices. It is also about developing sentinel research in the Moroccan marine domain in partnership with the various actors and operators in the fishing and aquaculture sector and deploying the concept of sentinel fishing through a physical center integrated into the fishing port.
This project also aims to strengthen awareness and popularization of knowledge to meet the high expectations of public authorities and local populations in terms of scientific research in relation to issues linked to climate change and ocean degradation.
“The establishment of this center involves a transformation on the basis of the new orientations of the M’diq fish farming station of the Center specialized in animal husbandry and marine aquaculture engineering which was built in 1995, on a plot of 2,400 square meters at the “inside the port of M’diq, as part of the Moroccan-Japanese cooperation project, relating to the development of research work in aquaculture”, indicates the INRH.
And added: “This station was the subject of an upgrade project in 2020 which was abandoned after the dismantling and demolition work due to the restrictions introduced to deal with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19”. Note that Morocco ranks at the top of African fishing powers with a coastline of 3,500 km bordering the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea and an EEZ of more than 1 million km2, waters particularly rich in fish and exceptional biological diversity.
