Judging panel

Dr Andrew Revill

Dr Andrew Revill is Senior Scientific Officer at Cefas. He specialises in fishing gear technology and the biological and economic impacts of technical measures. Andy is a national advisor on such issues and leads and or participates in many national and international fishing gear-related research areas. He is an active member of ICES including the Fishing Technology and Fish Behaviour Working Group.

A principal area of Andy’s research is the reduction of the adverse benthic impact of fishing gears by technical modification to fishing gears. He also works on discard/bycatch-reduction techniques, technological modifications to fishing gears, evolution of abandoned fishing gears, efficacy assessments of technical measures (pre- and post-introduction), and selectivity enhancement.

Andy has been a member of WWF’s Smart Gear judging panel for the past few years, and recently took part in a film about discards and potential gearing solutions to support the EU’s recent legislative drive.

Prior to joining Cefas in 2002 Andy held research posts in two British universities. He holds a BSc in fisheries (Humberside), MSc in aquaculture (Stirling) and a PhD in applied fisheries (Humberside). In his earlier years Andy was a commercial diver and also served for a period in the Royal Navy.

Dominic Rihan

Dominic Rihan is a Marine Technology Executive and is a graduate of University South West, Plymouth, where he graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Fisheries Science, majoring in Fishing Gear Design. He has been with the Irish Sea Fisheries Board (BIM) since 1990 and his main areas of expertise are in fishing gear technology and technical conservation measures. Dominic has been head of the Marine Technical Section since 2001 and has been involved both as co-ordinator and partner of many EU studies. He is the current chairman of the ICES-FAO Fishing Technology and Fish Behaviour (FTFB) Working Group.

Philip MacMullen

Philip MacMullen has worked in the fishing and seafood industries for nearly 30 years. He has 25 years’ experience in the management of very diverse research and development programmes focusing on fish harvesting technology and the interactions between fisheries, the broader natural environment, management regimes and the market. He also has extensive knowledge of the seafood industry in the UK, continental Europe and elsewhere plus consultancy experience in the Middle East and the Americas.

In early 2005 Philip was appointed Head of Environment at Seafish. Much of his current work involves encouraging dialogue between the disparate stakeholders that have an interest in the marine environment, looking for the factors that are driving their policy decisions and exploring supply chain solutions where there are problems in sustainable or responsible sourcing. Much of this involves working with the major players in the multiple retail and food-service sectors, with regulators and conservationists and with fishermen and their representatives.

Hans Polet

Dr Hans Polet has been a Research Scientist to the Section Fishing Gear Technology of the Institute of Agriculture and Fisheries Research (ILVO) in Ostend, Belgium since 1990. He has been active in the fields of fishing gear research, selectivity of fishing gear and the environmental impact of fishing activities. Hans is currently assisting the Belgian fishing fleet to convert to a more cost-effective and more environmentally friendly fishery. The alteration of existing fishing gears and the introduction of alternative fishing methods and types of fishing vessels are the main tool to reach this goal.

Hans Polet is a member of the ICES Fisheries Technology Committee, and of the ICES Working Group on Fishing Technology and Fish Behaviour; and he also took part in several meetings of the ICES Working Group on Crangonid Shrimps. Hans is a member of the Scientific, Technical and Economical Committee for Fisheries (STECF) of the European Commission (DG Fisheries), and of the national (Belgian) Working Group on Safety on Board of Fishing Vessels.

Hans Polet has been involved in many national and international co-operative R&D projects, mostly funded by the EU. The list of projects includes: discarding in the brown shrimp and Nephrops fisheries; bio-economic modelling of the impact of discarding in the European brown shrimp fisheries; modelling the impact of different users of the marine environment; reduction of discards in the flatfish, Nephrops and brown shrimp fisheries; environmental impact of beam trawling; studies on existing and introduction of new fishing methods in the Belgian sea fisheries.