PAP/RAC, as a partner in the SIMWESTMED & SUPREME projects, participated at the project Final conference “Planning the Mediterranean Sea”. The conference was held in Venice, Italy, from 11 to 13 December 2018 and hosted by CORILA.
During the conference, several events took place, including the final SUPREME & SIMWESTMED Steering Committee meetings, sessions and workshops. It was the occasion to exchange on the deliverables, to share the results from the 9 case studies of the two projects in 7 EU countries (Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Slovenia and Spain), but also to fine tune the finalisation of various products, and to discuss the future cooperation to support the implementation of Maritime Spatial Planning in the Mediterranean.
During the Pilot case session, the partners presented the work done on the ground (Var and Tyrrhenian cases for PAP/RAC), testing tools, methodologies and approach to support MSP implementation in the EU countries. This session was followed by the General conference of the two projects organized at Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, on 12 December, where PAP/RAC Director, representing the UN Environment/MAP, addressed the challenges of MSP implementation in the EU reminding that the ecosystem-based approach, to lead sustainable blue economy, should be considered at the Mediterranean scale.
On the following day, the workshop on land-sea interactions took place. The workshop, which was moderated by PAP/RAC together with CPMR, was an opportunity for participants to discuss the links and overlaps between land and sea planning from the multiple perspectives. Rich discussions helped raise the need to pursue efforts for a better integration of ICZM and MSP. The methodology to analyse LSI developed by PAP/RAC was also presented and discussed together with the MSP process, as follows:
- the ecosystem-based management in MSP;
- How to perform analysis of the land-sea interactions, combining ICZM and MSP?;
- Stakeholders’ involvement in the context of MSP implementation;
- Analysis of data, portal, tools and methods supporting the MSP process; and
- the development of a conceptual methodology for transboundary MSP aspects.
More information is available on the ICZM Platform and the EU MSP Platform.
