FISHERCOAST Kick-off conference and project meeting
April 9th–12th 2019, Ljubljana, Slovenia
On the 9th of April 2019 FISHERCOAST’s kick-off conference took place in Ljubljana in the beautiful venue of Atrium ZRC SAZU. The conference as well as the project meeting was organised by one of the project partners, the Slovene Institute for Migration which is part of the Research centre of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
First key-note speaker, Maarten Bavinck, co-director of MARE Center and Professor at the University of Amsterdam and the Norwegian College of Fishery Science, UiT The Arctic University of Norway presented about coastal transformation in India in a lecture entitled “The whereabouts of coastal policy – a comparative inquiry into the dilution and deflection of state intentions”.
Second key-note speaker dr. Alenka Janko Spreizer from the University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities in Koper, presented Slovenian situation in a lecture entitled “From fish cans and mullets to sea bass, shellfish and tourists: the case of the Slovenian small-scale coastal fisheries”.
Conference was followed by the first FISHERCOAST project meeting and a fieldtrip visit to the Slovenian coast. At the meeting seven project partners (Madras Institute of Development Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, French Institute of Pondicherry, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Norwegian College of Fishery Science, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, and University of East Anglia) discussed different work-packages and fieldwork locations.
At the fieldtrip, the FISHERCOAST researchers first visited Fishing Museum of Trieste Coast and were welcomed by Mr. Franko Košuta, President of the local cultural association Fishing Museum of Trieste Coast. They also visited Izolana, a local museum in Izola and embarked on a tour organised by a local fishing boat from Izola. After the boat excursion project partners visited also Fish farm Fonda in the Piran Bay at the southernmost point of the Slovenian sea.
At the end of the excursion participants visited exhibition place Monfort in Portorož and were welcomed by Mr. Franco Juri, Director of the Maritime Museum Piran. The excursion ended with the visit of the Maritime Museum Piran lead by Ms. Nadja Terčon, a senior curator at the museum.
Next FISHERCOAST meeting will take place in India in February 2020.
Photos: Špela Kastelic, ISIM ZRC SAZU
