For the third time since the beginning of the project, the Beneficiaries of LIFE Euroturtles gathered together in an annual project meeting (20-21. October 2018) in order to talk about the activities carried out in the last year, share experience, ideas, possible problems and possible solutions.
This year the meeting was organised at the end and in the same location of the 6th Mediterranean Conference on Marine Turtles (Poreč, Croatia) and the Beneficiaries benefited of the information shared at the conference and of discussion with several conference participants. The meeting showed a good progress of the project, with some actions almost concluded, like the improvement of rescue centres and networks, or in their full execution, like protection of nests and information of fishers and stakeholders.
Other more challenging actions, like the identification of turtle hot-spot areas at sea and modifications of fishing gears, are moving on thanks to the solutions developed by the Beneficiaries to cope with initial problems and will be finalised in the next 3 years of the project.

The progress made in the development of new GSM-GPS transmitter for turtle tracking raised (presented also to scientific community on Brijuni NP) particular interest among the participants, who discussed about the possible next steps. Since the responsible beneficiary is located in Slovenia and turtles do not frequent that area in winter, the next tests will be carried out in Italy, where local beneficiaries have easier access to turtles.
The participants also discussed about the challenges of introducing LED lights to set net fishers, in order to reduce turtle capture, and a strategy for the next year was agreed.