Between the 16th and 27th of October, the Canarian Oceanographic Center (COC) from the Spanish Oceanographic Institute (IEO) held a campaign in the Área de Fuerteventura-Gran Canaria, specifically on the Amanay and El Banquete seamounts.

The campaign goal –which has been called INFUECO 1009- has been the classification of the demersal fauna in these ecosystems for which there was fishing with keep nets, vertical bottom and floating longlines, between 30 and 1,500 m deep. The campaign led by Pablo Martín-Sosa –COC researcher- has been performed onboard the Oceanographic Ship Professor Ignacio Lozano.

The IEO will hold campaigns in 10 INDEMARES study areas. Apart from the area of the current campaign in the Canary archipelago, the IEO will study the Banco de la Concepción. The obvious goals for these two areas are the following: the geomorphological description of the sea bottoms, the oceanographic characteristics of the study area, the study of the epi- and suprabenthic and demersal biological communities, the identification and cartography of habitat and species considered by the European guidelines, the identification of the fishing methods (description of the fleet, intensity, spatial distribution, stationality, and downloads) and of another types, the diffusion of the project goals, the development, and the results, the cooperation with other institutions as regards research, the involvement and the cooperation of the parties interested in the preservation of resources, and finally, the identification of the threats on the resources, ecosystems, and biodiversity in the study area.