Sochi hosted the Medcoast Conference

The 9th international conference on the Mediterranean coastal environment - Medcoast 2009 took place in Sochi, Russia, on November 10-14, 2009. It was for the first time that the conference moved to the shores of the Black Sea where the main topics included ICM, coastal ecosystems and conservation, sustainable development of coastal areas, coastal engineering and data management.

An important part of the conference was dedicated to the poster session. The PAP/RAC project in Morocco, i.e. CAMP Morocco was presented at this session and was awarded a special prize as the best poster, presented by PAP/RAC National Project Co-ordinator Ms. Maria Snoussi.

In addition to this, the Centre contributed with a presentation on ICZM in the Mediterranean: The Regional outlook for the Pegaso project. A one-day session was dedicated to the Pegaso project partners (FP7) where PAP/RAC contributes as the WP2 Leader partner on ICZM Governance Platform. A detailed discussion took place after the Centre presented its vision for the Platform as well as its views on the project structure and activities. The Pegaso project will last for four years and is envisaged to start in February 2010.   

During the conference, a joint meeting of Medcoast and EMECS (International Centre for the Environmental Management of Enclosed Coastal Seas) took place with the aim to discuss the possibility to organise a joint conference in 2011.