Authors:
Margarita Stancheva, Center for Coastal and Marine Studies – CCMS
Agnese Cosulich, Sustainable Projects GmbH – s.Pro
Natascha Jaspert, Sustainable Projects GmbH – s.Pro
Addressing the Challenges
Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is designed to follow an Ecosystem-Based Approach (EBA), ensuring marine ecosystem health and sustainability. In practice, MSP is often assumed as sector-driven, with limited integration of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and area-based conservation measures. Challenges include unclear biodiversity criteria, weak policy coherence, and limited understanding of human–ecosystem interactions.
The MSP4BIO Approach: Innovative Solutions for Nature-Inclusive MSP
To tackle these gaps, MSP4BIO developed and tested an innovative Ecological and Socio-Economic (ESE) management framework in close collaboration with stakeholders. This flexible, integrated approach enhances biodiversity integration in MSP and sectoral planning, adapting to the rapid changes in marine ecosystems.
Unlike existing practices, the ESE framework provides tailored solutions balancing conservation and socio-economic objectives across MSP4BIO’s six test sites (D5.3). The project also examined the social impacts of MSP-MPA integration through its Communities of Practice (CoPs), ensuring management strategies reflect stakeholder perspectives. As a result, strategic solutions were developed that align MPAs and MSP while improving sectoral coordination.
Operating across local, national, cross-border, and sea basin levels, MSP4BIO contributed to identifying ecological corridors, MPA networks, and Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs), adapted to varying governance contexts. This process strengthened capacities and motivation for biodiversity planning, supported by CoPs through participatory mapping, gap analyses, trade-off discussions, and Decision Support Tools such as PlanWise4Blue, the Area-based Conservation Planner, and the ESE online platform (D5.1, D5.2, D5.3, D5.4).
Read the full blogpost on the MSP4BIO website to follow how MSP supports sustainable biodiversity and what are the future opportunities:
https://msp4bio.eu/maritime-spatial-planning-a-key-tool-for-mainstreaming-sustainable-biodiversity/