PRO TROUT-Prospering native brown trout and local fishing professions
Funded by Karelia CBC 2014-2020

Objective of the project

Fisheries of Lake Pyaozero are utilized, controlled and managed in a way that amends erosion of fish biodiversity in the border area and makes fishing-based nature tourism a sustainable income option for the local people.

Main activities

- Publicity campaign "PROZHA" is carried out to inform the local residents and fishing tourists about the vulnerability of brown trout in northern parts and river mouth areas of Lake Pyaozero to illegal-scale net-fishing and other fishing practices that easily lead to overexploitation and extinction of the crossborder fish populations. - In work package CORE, the effectiveness, operational capacity, motivation and between-organization co-operation models of fishing control on Lake Pyaozero are advanced with a training course targeted at the controlling authority organizations. Guided by the practical experiences during the course and feedback from the participants, PROTROUT prepares a fishing control plan for Lake Pyaozero, and introduces it to the fishing control authorities and the Finnish-Russian Working Group for the Fisheries. - In work package LILA, the project contacts prospective new fishing tourism entrepreneurs and presently operating commercial fishers in the Loukhsky District, and organizes them a training course to build up their (1) skills and motivation to design, start and run fishing and nature -oriented small businesses and (2) knowledge-base on sustainable and profitable ways to exploit fish biodiversity of the border area. - Natural mortality rate of the Oulanka-Pyaozero brown trout during the life stages when they (1) reside in the river habitat as juveniles and when they (2) migrate from the river to the lake feeding area is studied by conducting acoustic tagging and surveillance of the fish in the work package DABA.

Achievements