EURO-MEDITERRANEAN Conference

Under the auspices of IFREMER, on November 20-21, the first EURO-MEDITERRANEAN Conference was organised in Toulon, entitled "Building together responses to challenges posed by the Mediterranean Sea". PAP/RAC took an active role as an important actor in the field of coastal and marine management, particularly through its ICZM-related activities. After the plenary session in which the four main themes of the conference were introduced, the work proceeded in workshops to deal with impacts of human activities on marine environment, natural geological risks, sustainable exploitation of fish resources, and integrated coastal zone management. Lively debates in the workshops allowed for proposing a number of projects to be launched jointly by the two shores, in order to get to know better the Mediterranean basin and its dynamics, and to integrate as much as possible the scientific knowledge on physical planning and land-use management. The conference was crowned by a joint declaration of the participants, and Italy offered to host the second conference next year.