March 24, 2017

PANACeA Project: A new Mediterranean partnership for biodiversity protection action and policy is born

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Marseille, 17 March 2017 – The PANACeA project, a regional initiative to channel common efforts towards an effective protection of natural resources in the Mediterranean, has brought together in Marseille major regional players to establish a roadmap for concerted actions over the next 3 years.

Led by the European Topic Centre of Malaga University (ETC-UMA), this new endeavour co-funded by the EU Interrreg Med Programme has gathered around 60 representatives from Mediterranean institutions such as UNEP PlanBleu of the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (CPMR), Meditarranean Universitites Union (UNIMED), WWF Mediterranean, the Barcelona Convention  and IUCN together with research universities and public authorities, to put on the table the various projects underway and agree a joint framework of action to tackle common challenges related to biodiversity protection in the Mediterranean and establish priorities for an enhanced Mediterranean-wide and EU environmental policies affecting the Mediterranean.

Guillaume Huet, Head of International and Mediterranean relations at Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region, highlighted the importance of territorial cooperation and the involvement of private and public institutions: “We have to prepare a scheme of ecological coherence and involve other authorities”. Francesca Marcato, Project officer from the Interreg Med Programme Joint Secretariat, highlighted that “this innovative approach to integrate all projects in new biodiversity protection community will create a critical mass to influence environmental policy in the Mediterranean.” Dania Abdul Malak, the PANACeA coordinator at ETC-UMA, explained the importance of working together and stimulating collaboration and communication among major environmental organisations, policy makers, socio-economic actors, civil society and the scientific community particularly in Mediterranean protected areas as the key to protecting biodiversity in the region.

Hosted by Villa Méditerranée, nine thematic projects involving more than 100 entities and a total investment of nearly € 18 million over three years, have worked for two days to agree on collaborative actions dealing with governance and management of coastal and marine areas, biodiversity monitoring, the sustainable use of natural resources, climate change and scientific methodologies and innovation.

PANACeA pursues the capitalization and transfer of key project findings within and beyond the Mediterranean and the establishment of an Interreg Med Biodiversity Protection Platform and Community towards an effective management and protection of Mediterranean ecosystems.

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For further information and photos, please contact:

Lise Guennal
lise.guennal@crpm.org
+33 6 76 59 12 86

Sonsoles San Roman
sonsolessanroman@uma.es

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More About PANACeA Project:

The objective of PANACeA is to streamline networking and management efforts in Mediterranean Protected Areas (PAs) as a mechanism to enhance nature conservation and protection in the region.

The project aims at ensuring synergies between relevant Mediterranean stakeholders –including managers, policymakers, socio-economic actors, civil society and the scientific community –, and to increase the visibility and impacts of their projects’ results towards common identified strategical targets.

PANACeA builds a community of nature conservation stakeholders in the Mediterranean and acts as the Communication and Capitalisation instrument of the projects dealing with protection of biodiversity and natural ecosystems. Through its tool, the Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Knowledge Platform, PANACeA ensures the transfer of synthesised projects’ outcomes and their dissemination across and beyond the region.

The main thematic focus areas include coastal and marine management, biodiversity monitoring, sustainable use of natural resources, management of protected areas, global changes, governance and cooperation and scientific and innovative methodologies, under the umbrella of a series of projects: ACT4LITTER (marine waste in marine protected areas) and additional projects to be included in the coming period, AMAre (marine spatial planning and PAs), CONFISH (network of fish stock recovery areas), ECOSUSTAIN (water quality monitoring solutions in protected wetlands), FishMPABlue2 (governance of artisanal fisheries in PAs), MEDSEALITTER (marine waste management), MPA-ADAPT (adaptation of MPAs to climate change), POSBEMED (strategy for joint management of Posidonia beaches and dunes), WETNET (wetland governance).

Follow PANACeA on twitter: @MedCommunity3_2.
And LinkedIn: « Biodiversity Protection Community »