The Coastal Resilience and the Marine Mammals Self Assessment Toolkits, innovative tools presented in the Mediterranean MPA 2020 Forum

by | Mar 16, 2022 | Uncategorized

Participants in the Marine Mammals and Coastal Resiliance Trainings

In December 2021, the Ocean Governance Project had an intensive agenda in the Mediterranean MPA Forum, hosted in Monaco. Our experts Francis Staub (leader of the Marine Mammals Twinning Project) and Jean-Jacques Goussard (leader of the Coastal Resilience Twinning Project) presented the Self-Assessment Tools created in each twinning project at Mediterranean Marine Protected Area 2020 Forum and a side event following the event.

The Post-2020 Roadmap and Forum provided an excellent opportunity for the Ocean Governance project and its twinning projects, thanks to the large number of MPA managers, policymakers and stakeholders from the Mediterranean area who were present.

On 30 November, Jean-Jacques  participated in the DS26 session: Community-based approaches to MPA governance for natural resource management, at which the Director of Community Marine Protected Areas of Senegal (Mr Mamadou Sidibé) also spoke. His presentation was complemented by Jean-Jacques’s intervention on the ongoing experiences of the Resilience Assessment Programme (started in early 2021).

Francis, meanwhile, participated in several networking opportunities, such as the “NS03: A showcase of initiatives for monk seal conservation“, as well as the side event organised by the Pelagos Sanctuary on the evening of 2 December.

Dedicated training courses

Following the conclusion of the Forum, the Marine Mammals Twinning, Resilience Twinning and MPA Networks Twinning hosted a 3-hour workshop for MPA managers entitled, “Training on Two Innovative Toolkits for MPA Managers to Assess MPA Marine Mammals Management and MPA Resilience-based Management“.

Around 20 MPA manangers enjoyed the training course organised back-to-back with the Forum. There was a “unanimous response” regarding the value of the tools presented and how the managers will use them to create the management programmes of the areas that attended the training course.