News and Events
OCEAN SAND: PUTTING SAND ON THE OCEAN SUSTAINABILITY AGENDA – Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) Report published
Sand in the ocean ecosystem. The marine and coastal environment is both a sink for sand delivered from rivers and an active source of sand, continuously subject to erosional and depositional processes, longshore currents, tides, waves and bio-erosion. Naturally-occurring sand acts as both a connector and a buffer at the land-sea interface, functionally linking the marine and terrestrial ecosystems while protecting the land and stabilizing the coastline in what is generally considered one of the most costeffective climate mitigation strategies to enhance coastal resilience. It underpins island morphology, shapes the seabed, controls coastal erosion, offers essential nutrients and maintains biodiversity through the formation of sand bars, beaches, dunes and other coastal landforms that support highly specialized biotic assemblages and provide habitat for a wide variety of species.
MSP-GREEN Project survey: Communicating Maritime European Green Deal across basins
In the framework of the EMFAF MSP-GREEN project (Maritime Spatial Planning as Enabler of the European Green Deal), the project communication team has created a survey, as part of Task 5.3: Communicating maritime European Green Deal (EGD), which results in Deliverable 5.2. A handbook reviewing cross-basin performed and ongoing communication strategies, and relevant strategic guidance documents, trends and specificities in the field of maritime spatial planning (MSP), EGD, stakeholder involvement etc.
The aim of the survey is to identify specific elements and elaborate recommendations on communicative strategies and digital tools that can represent maritime specificities of the EU basins and enable communication of the maritime European Green Deal. Promoting the EGD means promoting a theoretical approach, based on scientific evidence but that can only be achieved by a cultural transformation. This translates into defining scenarios that can support difficult choices that as a society we will be called to take in the near future. By supporting the maritime EGD, the project is, therefore, taking part in shaping our reality by proposing new pathways across EU sea basins - a possible future, a future that may be better for current and next generations. In this regard, it is understandable that there is no one-size-fits-for-all-systems, but to operatively cover basin perspectives for this activity, all questions are asked to be based upon your experience seen under the basin-wide umbrella rather than distinctively the national MSP perspective.
Please follow the link to access the survey: https://forms.gle/WLffcEYBgYnMEHVU9
It will be greatly appreciated if the survey will be filled in by the 13th of April 2023.
If you would like to leave any additional comments or questions, please contact MoEPRD task coordinator & communication specialist Annija Danenberga ().
Thank you very much in advance for your consideration and feel free to disseminating this to your wide networks and all interested stakeholders across basins!
CCMS ATTENDED THE EMD 2023
The European Maritime Day (EMD), took place in Brest (France) on 24 and 25 of May and was organised by the European Commission, the City of Brest, the Region of Brittany, the department of Finistère and the General Secretariat for the Sea.
CCMS team members participated at the event, and the two European, MSP projects in which we are partners were widely presented: the Horizon Europe MSP4BIO project and the EMFAF project MSP-GREEN. Partners from both projects attended the EMD 2023 and the two projects had large exhibitions.
Our Workshop 14 - Achieving marine biodiversity protection targets in the EU -improving governance or planning & management was co-organised by European Union's Ocean Governance for MPAs Project and the WWF European Policy Office. The MSP4BIO coordinator Ivana Stojanovic presented three sister projects: MSP4BIO, EuropeMPA and MarinePlan. The synergies include more science-based planning and co-development with stakeholders. The workshop was moderated by Mauro Randone from WWF-Med, one of the MSP4BIO partners.
ECHOES FROM THE SECOND MSP4BIO GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETING
The Second General Assembly Meeting of the MSP4BIO project was conducted on 20-21 March in Ostende, Belgium, organised by Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee (VLIZ). All MSP4BIO partners gathered at the meeting and took stock of the achievements made in the first 8 months and the way forward with the aim to contribute to a better integration between Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
In the first day of MSP4BIO General Assembly we have put focus on interactions and discussions on the methodology and development of the project's final product, conservation management, protection criteria and policy coherence analysis.
In the second day, the initial results from the integrated reports on the specific gaps analysis for the MSP4BIO test sites were presented and we actively discussed during the interactive sessions on the Communities of Practice synergies and work plans for the ESE integrated framework implementation.
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