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Tuesday 10 June 2014

Tourfish in Hastings: 21st to 24th June: "raising awareness of inshore fishing and locally produced food - to promote the importance of these industries to local economies and responsible tourism."

A big initiative will be happening later this month along the coast:
Futures Forum: Tourfish


Here's an excellent overview from the Sidmouth Drill Hall website:



TOURFISH


TourFish
Tourism for Inshore Fishing, Food & Sustainability. Click to visit the website –TourFish
What is TourFish?
TourFish is a new project created by a partnership of 6 organisations in England, France, Holland and Belgium that will raise awareness of inshore fishing and locally produced food to promote the importance of these industries to local economies and responsible tourism.
How is it funded?
The partners were awarded funding by the European Union Interreg IVa ‘2 Seas’ Programme. The ‘2 Seas’ Programme provides grants to the coastal areas of the North Sea and English Channel.
What will happen?
In Phase 1 of the project the partners will hold a conference in Hastings on 23rd and 24th June 2014. Packed with demonstrations, exhibitions and interactive thematic conference sessions producers (farmers and fishers), tourism professionals and providers, policymakers, academics, planners and educationalists from France, Belgium, Netherlands and the UK will network and participate in a range of activities all designed to inspire new opportunities for sustainable development by bringing together food, fisheries and tourism.
A concert will be held at St Mary in the Castle, a stunning venue on Hastings seafront on Sunday 22nd June. The concert will be promoted in association with Sidmouth Folk Week and will feature Steve Knightley and special guests.
Over the weekend of 21st and 22nd June, Hastings Fish Fair will see thousands of people head to Hastings seafront to sample fresh sh and locally produced food, watch cooking demonstrations, and more.
Following the TourFish conference in Hastings a project publication will be created by the partners that will make recommendations on sustainable development and responsible tourism. The publication will be distributed across the Member States of the European Union.
In Phase 2 the results from Phase 1 will be used to create pilot projects to support responsible tourism and sustainable development in coastal communities. Festivals will be held in two partner locations; Boulogne, France and Sidmouth in 2015.
Who are the partners?
The TourFish partners are:
University of Greenwich
University of Brighton at Hastings
Flanders House of Food, Belgium
The Municipality of Midleburg, Holland
Nausicaa Maritime Centre, France
Sidmouth Trawlers, Devon
Responsible Tourism
What do we mean by Responsible Tourism?
Responsible Tourism is about making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit.
Mass tourism has led to many cultural and social problems across the world. Responsible tourism however tries to develop forms of tourism that maximise the benefits for local communities and visitors. These benefits need to be addressed across the social, environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability.
Responsible Tourism encourages us to think about the links between regional produce, regional business, locality and identity.
Through Responsible Tourism people can gain more meaningful experiences in their engagement with local places i.e. it increases the quality of the visit while enhancing the circumstances for local people.
In Responsible Tourism, individuals, organisations, authorities, and businesses are asked to take responsibility for their actions.
How can Responsible Tourism make better places for people to live in and visit?
  • Through strengthening place identity
  • Creation of new economic opportunities for local people
  • Helping to value the activities of local people
  • Increasing social cohesion
  • Developing educational opportunities
  • Understanding environmental sustainability
  • Addressing issues of supply chain to maximise opportunities for Sustainable Development
  • Shortening supply chains to maintain a local ecology and economy
Sustainable Development
What do we mean by Sustainable Development?
Sustainable Development is ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.
Sustainable Development recognises that we live on a finite planet. It acknowledges a desirable future state for human societies in which living conditions and the use of resources meet human needs without undermining natural systems and the environment, so that future generations may also have their needs met.
Sustainable Development encourages collective responsibility for the social and economic challenges faced by humanity.
Why is Sustainable Development in Coastal Communities?
Sustainable Development encourages us to think about the links between regional produce, locality and identity.
It is important to understand the role of inshore fisheries and food as part of the social and cultural regeneration of coastal communities. Unless this importance is widely understood there is a danger that many social and economic opportunities will be lost if fishing disappears from coastal towns along the Channel and Southern North Sea. There is untapped market potential for developing synergies between inshore fisheries, food, tourism and regeneration. However, if this is to be realised in a way that is socially, culturally and environmentally sensitive then development must proceed ‘responsibly’.
TourFish | Sidmouth Drill Hall

Working with the University of Greenwich:


How can agro-food, fisheries and tourism work together to deliver new opportunities for sustainable development along the coast and in our towns and countryside?

University of Greenwich | Food, Fisheries and Tourism
Geography of Inshore Fishing and Sustainability (Hastings Case Study) | Ecosystems Knowledge Network

With the second day of the conference being led by Sidmouth Trawlers:

Tuesday - Conference Day Two - St Mary in the Castle

Fish, Food and Festivals: Responsible tourism and fishing-led community regeneration - led by Sidmouth Trawlers, Hastings Fishermen's Protection Society and University of Brighton

Join us as we share lessons learnt about the hard won successes of two very different fishing communities using their heritage and contemporary fishing fleet identity to act as a catalyst for community led regeneration. Common to both of these remarkable stories is the use of the cultural traditions tied into their landscape and livelihoods by the fishers and the communities around them to forge a unique responsible tourism offer around fish, food and festivals.

Learn about their different routes to industry empowerment and activism and the creative ways in which their stories, knowledge and skills are being re-connected and so re-valued by a new generation of visitors and residents. We want to showcase to you how through adopting approaches proudly grounded in the fishing community the link between an emerging responsible tourism market and community led regeneration can help to protect the livelihoods, unique place based identity, social cohesion, sense of purpose and traditions of our coastal communities.

The session will involve an introduction to each case study by a panel of community stakeholders and will be followed by what we know will be a lively and insightful Q&A session where we will invite you to be part of the audience wide discussion around how these models might apply to your industry and contribute to your community.

This session is particularly valuable for:
Fishers, farmers and agri-food producers to learn about how responsible tourism can be part of your community strategy to secure your livelihood.
Tourism and marketing professionals will learn about how they might work with community led regeneration projects to develop the emerging responsible tourism market and so achieve sustainable economic renewal.
NGOs and civil society groups will have valuable experience of achieving societal change through bottom up local community models that share many of the principles of this approach to community led regeneration and responsible tourism, thus creating the opportunity for mutual exchange of lessons learnt.
Social and economic policy practitioners can see first hand how fisheries inspired responsible tourism can be a catalyst for social and economic regeneration.


University of Greenwich | Programme and Activities 

Other partners include:
2 Mers Seas Zeeën
TourFish | Greenwich Maritime Institute
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