Biodiversity Protection Community
EU policies have reaffirmed the importance of protected areas for the conservation of biological diversity. The preservation of coastal and maritime ecosystems is a key element for the future of the Mediterranean.
In this context, the “Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Community (MBPC)” aims at strengthening the management and capacities of protected areas. Its main objectives are to create synergies, mainstream management efforts, and increase the protection of biodiversity in maritime and coastal ecosystems towards common identified strategic targets. Moreover, it acts as a community, seeking to boost networking as a mechanism to enhance nature conservation and protection in the region.
The projects, part of the community, join their effort to integrate conservation practices into regional development strategies, through participatory approaches, applying ecosystem-based management approaches in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and testing geospatial, monitoring and management tools. They aim at, for example, improving conservation status and water management, fighting against marine pollution, or monitoring tourism and cruise impacts in mobile species.
The community developed the Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Knowledge Platform (MBPKP), a platform that gathers external validated open source information including maps and spatial data. Besides, the project released a large range of documents and publications (including factsheets, technical and policy papers, workshops reports, guidelines) available online. A Declaration for an Ecosystem-based approach to biodiversity protection and management, that any interested party can adopt, has been developed to ensure the joint efforts.
Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions - Intermediterranean
Commission
The Conference of Peripheral and Maritime
Regions of Europe is a network of 160 Regional authorities from 28 States (from
the EU and its Neighborhood). It operates both as a think tank and as a lobby
for Regions, being a unique organization subdivided into six Geographical
Commissions corresponding to the EU maritime basins. The CPMR covers three main
domains - maritime affairs, cohesion, and accessibility – but is also active on
other related policies (e.g. Climate, Migration, among others).
The CPMR Intermediterranean Commission is one of these
six Geographical Commissions. It gathers around 44 Member Regions from 9
different EU members states and other countries from the Neighborhood South.
The IMC focuses on the development of the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue and
territorial cooperation, concentrating its efforts on Transport and Integrated
Maritime Policy, Economic and Social Cohesion, Water and Energy, Territorial
cooperation and Macro-Regional Strategies, also mobilizing partners from the
southern rims of the basin. The CPMR IMC is currently involved in several EU
cooperation projects with its regions and territorial partners including MBPC.
ETC-UMA
The European Topic Centre on Spatial Analysis and
Synthesis of the University of Malaga (ETC-UMA) is an international research
centre supporting since 2011 the development of knowledge to feed
evidence-based policy. The team has wide expertise in a range of environmental
and socio-economic domains. Its major areas of expertise include land
management, ecosystem services, coastal and marine studies, environmental
conservation, territorial development, resource efficiency, and soil mapping.
The ETC-UMA has been the lead partner during the first
phase of the Interreg Med horizontal project (PANACeA) from 2016 to 2019 and is
leading the Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Community (MBPC) project from
2019 to 2022. Its role is coordinating the overall partnership and its
activities, furthermore, ETC-UMA reinforces the community of individuals and
institutions part of the project, ensuring biodiversity protection-oriented
results.
MARINE INSTITUTE
The
Marine Institute (MI) is a public equivalent body with its seat on the island
of Lošinj, Croatia. The MI works closely with the Blue World Institute of
Marine Research and Conservation (BWI) and the Croatian Natural History Museum
organizing workshops, lectures, and public awareness activities through
different marine conservation projects.
In the frame of MED Academy, the
MI will provide expertise in engagement within the Science-Policy interface and
the Science Business interface. In addition, the MI will provide access to
conservation specialists to share knowledge and best practice in biodiversity
conservation and management measures, through its broad networks in the
Mediterranean and European regions.
MedCities
MedCities is a network that gathers cities from all shores of the Mediterranean basin. It was created in Barcelona in November 1991 as a vehicle for empowering municipalities in respect of urban development issues. The organisation has extensive experience in project implementation, communication, capitalisation and transferability of experiences and has been active in urban sustainable development, including coastal zone management and environmental protection. Some of the MedCities members have competences in managing protected areas, including coastal areas, rivers and periurban natural parks, and undertake planning, environmental protection and governance activities of such areas.
Latte
Latte works side by side with organisations defending and protecting human rights, animal welfare, and the environment, as well as with civil society groups, social businesses, and ground-breaking start-ups, and with the EU and national authorities to try to leave the world better than we found it. Raising awareness and engaging communities is often just a matter of being heard and that with the right communication tools you can easily boost your voice and expand the scope of your cause.
Plan Bleu
Plan Bleu is one of the Regional Activity Centres of the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), put in place by France since 1977. Its program of work is approved every two years by the Contracting parties to the Barcelona Convention.
Plan Bleu produces studies and scenarios for the future in order to raise awareness of Mediterranean stakeholders and decision-makers regarding environmental and sustainable development issues in the region.
Ministry of Montenegro
The Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning, and Urbanism is the competent authority with the overall responsibility for the development, management, and coordination of environment and climate action policy in Montenegro. In this context, the Ministry of Montenegro has thematic Directorates dealing with different topics and among them the Directorate for Nature and within the Division for integrated management of coastal and land/terrestrial ecosystems, and the Directorate for EU integration, international cooperation and climate change which is responsible for policy framework and coordination of activities in two important topics of the project: Marine environment protection and Climate Change.
