COST Actions are charged with directing European science and do not pay for researchers’ time. Instead, COST funded the INTERCAFE research network to organise and run a series of international meetings. These meetings, held in a number of countries, were of two kinds. There were regular meetings where participants concentrated on the specific work of the Action’s Work Groups. There were also Case Study meetings where participants explored the relevant local biological, social, cultural and legal perspectives with the help of invited experts.
At each meeting, INTERCAFE participants worked in one of three Work Groups, covering the broad aims of the Action:-
- Work Group One – Ecological Databases and Analyses
- Work Group Two – Conflict Resolution and Management
- Work Group Three – Linking Science with Policy and Best Practice
Most meetings included a field visit to allow participants to see cormorant-fishery conflicts at first-hand. In addition, wherever possible the INTERCAFE budget was also used to invite appropriate local, regional, national or international experts to the meetings. Through these interactions and discussions, INTERCAFE participants and invited stakeholders tried to understand the diverse cormorant-fishery conflicts in Europe and beyond.
INTERCAFE meetings drew together a network of researchers from a number of disciplines, including bird-related and broader ecology, fisheries science and management, sociology, social anthropology and international law. Other INTERCAFE experts were very often connected with fisheries production, harvest and management, or to regional/national policy and decision-making. Interested parties - from local stakeholders to international policy-makers - were thus offered a unique opportunity to address European cormorant-fisheries issues through these meetings.
Case Study reports were written and collated as a means of exchanging information between INTERCAFE participants and the numerous stakeholders – both individuals and institutions – that were involved in the meetings. As such, these reports followed a fairly standard structure. Reports of the regular meetings were considered to be more flexible and dynamic, reflecting the emerging and developing work of the Action’s three Work Groups. Originally these meeting reports were produced as a means of documenting as accurately as possible all that was happening at meetings. Thus they served both as an aide-mémoire for those participants who were there, and as a full record of events for those unable to attend. Consequently, much of the material produced in INTERCAFE’s meeting reports is 'work in progress': most of it was destined for the Action’s Final Reports but some was abandoned or re-worked as the Action evolved.
In all, INTERCAFE held ten meetings, each themed around a topic particularly relevant to the Action or to the host country. Apart from the final meeting in Paris, reports were produced for each. Thus nine INTERCAFE reports are available here in slightly edited form from the versions used by participants during the life of the project. Some repetitive elements have been removed from the reports here (e.g. the development of the contents of the Field Manual), some Question and Answer sessions have been anonymised to maintain confidentiality, and Management Committee and Steering Committee 'housekeeping' business has been removed. The INTERCAFE meetings and reports are detailed below:
INTERCAFE (COST 635) Kick-off Meeting Carss, D.N. (ed.) (2004). Minutes of first INTERCAFE meeting, COST Office, Avenue Louise 149, Brussels, 20-21 September 2004.
Organisation, management and integration of Work Groups within INTERCAFE Carss, D.N. & Marzano, M. (eds.) (2005a). INTERCAFE Meeting Report, Lisbon, Portugal, 28-30 January 2005.
Cormorant ecology, commercial fishing and stakeholder interaction Marzano, M. & Carss, D.N. (eds.) (2005). INTERCAFE Meeting Report, Gdansk, Poland, 23-25 April 2005.
Commercial carp aquaculture Carss, D.N. & Marzano, M. (eds.) (2005b). INTERCAFE Meeting Report, Saxony, Germany, 01-03 October 2005.
Cormorant-fishery conflict management in the Hula Valley, Israel Marzano, M. & Carss, D.N. (eds.) (2006). INTERCAFE Case Study Report, Hula Valley, Israel, 21-23 January 2006.
Angling and EU legislation Carss, D.N. & Marzano, M. (eds.) (2006). INTERCAFE Meeting Report, Bohinj, Slovenia, 07-09 October 2006.
What to do when the cormorant comes Marzano, M. & Carss, D.N. (eds.) (2007). INTERCAFE Meeting Report, Hanko, Finland, 13-15 April 2007.
Extensive aquaculture systems and relationships between stakeholder perspectives and different spatial and institutional levels Carss, D.N. & Marzano, M. (eds.) (2007). INTERCAFE Case Study Report, Po Delta, Italy, 21-23 September 2007.
Management practices in a complex habitat mosaic and at local, regional and national levels Marzano, M. & Carss, D.N. (eds.) (2008). INTERCAFE Meeting Report, South Bohemia, Czech Republic, 13-11 April 2008.
The management of cormorant-fisheries conflicts in France and the wider European context” INTERCAFE Case Study (final meeting), Paris, France, September 2008 – no report produced.