Sharing experiences around the Mediterranean

Sharing experiences around the Mediterranean

 

The MedPAN Regional experience-sharing Workshop was held from 25 to 27 October 2022 in Petrovac, Montenegro and online. This year's workshop, the first MedPAN workshop of the post-2020 era, marked by the adoption of a new post-2020 SAPBIO and an ambitious 30x30 target within the framework of COP 22 of the Barcelona Convention, and which will soon see the advent of a new Global Biodiversity Framework, focused on exchange of experience on MPA management effectiveness. Indeed, while the area covered by MPAs is increasing and rightly attracting attention, the effectiveness of MPA management is a major issue and is still sometimes overlooked. MPA managers and conservation scientists are legitimately concerned that many MPAs are not achieving the conservation objectives for which they were established, due to a lack of effective management. To achieve their goals and objectives, MPAs must be adequately managed and management needs to be regularly assessed.

 

More than a topic, effective MPA management is a challenge at the heart of conservation strategy, as all our actions converge to support ecologically representative, connected, and effectively managed MPAs and MPA networks to help preserve marine biodiversity. As such, MPA management effectiveness is a cross-cutting issue against the backdrop of all other topics, that underpins all of our activities in technical, policy and knowledge support.

 

The overall objective of the Workshop was to enable MPA managers and stakeholders to pool and share information, skills and experiences and take stock of best practices and approaches to improve and evaluate the effectiveness of MPA management in order to achieve tangible conservation outcomes. To address the specific objectives of this workshop, the three days programme will contribute toward a common vision and understanding of MPA management effectiveness by engaging together in the 12 discussion sessions on the workshop's agenda.

 

INCA actively participated to this workshop and shared its experience on the assessment of management effectiveness of marine protected areas using the Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT), focusing on the example of the Karaburun Sazan Marine National Park. Additionally, on various sessions, INCA promoted the newly established marine protected area of Porto Palermo, highlighting the need for stronger support for building capacities of MPA managers in order to ensure an effective management of the area.

 

The workshop was organized by MedPAN, the network of Marine Protected Area managers in the Mediterranean, and its host partners, the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism, the Public Enterprise for Coastal Zone Management, and MEDCEM (Mediterranean Center for Environmental Monitoring).