The First Advisory Board Meeting of MARSPLAN - BS II Project (Cross-border Maritime Spatial Planning for Black Sea – Bulgaria and Romania), was successfully conducted on 9 of July 2020 at the Exhibition Center Flora, Burgas, Bulgaria. Due to the security measures related to Covid-19, the distinguished international experts, members of the project Advisory Board, as well as the Romanian partners, attended the meeting through video-conference, while the Bulgarian project partners had the opportunity to attend the meeting in person.
The meeting was organized by the MARSPLAN-BS II Project Coordinator - Bulgarian Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works and representatives of Bulgarian partners were in present: National Center for Regional Development, Center for Coastal and Marine Studies, Varna and Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy, Varna. The Romanian partners that took part in the meeting were: Romanian Ministry of Public Works, Development and Administration, National Institute for Marine Research and Development "Grigori Antipa", Ovidius University of Constanţa and the National Institute for Research and Development on Marine Geology and Geo-ecology (GeoEcoMar).
Leading experts on Maritime Spatial Planning: Emiliano Ramieri from Thetis, Italy; Prof. Jacek Zaucha – Marine Institute in Gdansk, Poland; Alejandro Iglesias Campos - IOC-UNESCO, Irina Makarenko – Black Sea Commission, Rositsa Stoeva – Organization for the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), representatives of Turkey, Ukraine, and Georgia took active remote participation as Members of the project Advisory Board.
The discussions were focused one of the important project activities: analysis of existing conditions of the maritime space of Bulgaria and Romania, Land-Sea Interactions (LSI) and how they can be integrated into MSP (approach, suggested methodology, common analytical framework and definition) and addressing the Multi – Use (MU) Concept with MSP and elaborated case studies in the Black Sea (Bulgaria and Romania). The experts exchanged knowledge and shared experience for the successful future development of the activities set out in the project.
CCMS Director Dr. Margarita Stancheva as leading two important activities in the project: Integration of LSI in MSP and Addressing the MU with MSP in the cross-border region presented the LSI approach for integration the LSI into MSP (analysis, LSI methodology, common conceptual framework and definition) and completed Multi-Use Case study in Bulgaria for the combination of Tourism, Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) and Environmental Protection. The case study identifies the main findings on key drivers and barriers to this MU combination and recommendations and suggested actions how to address them with the commencing MSP in Bulgaria. For more details on the Bulgarian MU Case Study follow the PPT from the Advisory Board Meeting.
The Interdisciplinary Seminar "Blue Synergy" under MARSPLAN – BS II was held at the Exhibition Center Flora, Burgas on 10 July 2020. The seminar was officially opened by the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Denitsa Nikolova and was held in full compliance with security measures. The participants also receive greetings by the Mayor of Burgas Dimitar Nikolov, who pointed out about the importance of the plan for the development of the coastal municipalities. The seminar was attended by leading experts on maritime spatial planning, as well as experts on the protection of marine environment, marine transport, fishery and aquaculture, who presented the progress of the project, significant messages and exchanged their experiences to the public.
Two CCMS experts took participation at the seminar as invited speakers: Dr. Margarita Stancheva (MARSPLAN-BS II CCMS Coordinator), which presented new approaches in Marine Spatial Planning, and Dr. Georgi Parlichev (Key expert of biodiversity to the National Centre for Regional Development for the elaboration of the national MSP), presented the current state and analysis on biodiversity and environmental protection.
Follow also the MARSPLAN-BS II website for more details and news on the project development.