News
December
Have you missed MSP news from this week? Don't worry, it is possible to catch up thanks to our weekly review. Here you can find a selection of some of the most relevant news from this week:
- 450 GW of offshore wind for Europe by 2050!
- Europe's Wind Industry Needs More Sea Space - Marine Link
- EU goals for 450 GW of offshore wind are achievable, says WindEurope - New Europe
- 450 GW possible in Europe with grid investment and spatial planning - Riviera Maritime Media
- Irish Draft National Marine Planning Framework published
- Maritime Spatial Planning Forum in Riga
- Only 1.8% of EU MPAs with management plans!
Have a pleasant weekend and see you soon for more MSP news in a nutshell!
A new report by WindEurope, a non-profit association, shows that it is feasible to deploy 450 GW of offshore wind energy capacity. The report "Our energy, our future" highlights the fact that Europe can go carbon-neutral by 2050, as per European Commission plans. With currently 20 GW of offshore wind energy being produced, Europe could reach its goals through the use of only 3% of European sea space, allowing for provision of 30% of Europe´s electricity needs. This increase could create thousands of jobs in Europe, whilst also providing clean power and cheap electricity for the population. The reports states that to reach this target, countries must work together on their maritime spatial planning.
For more information see the report of WindEurope, and watch the video on their website.
November
This is the main take-away of the report "Protecting our ocean: Europe's challenges to meet the 2020 deadlines". According to the Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi target 11 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14, the European Union should be effectively protecting at least 10% of its marine and coastal areas before the end of 2020. However, the latest report from the WWF and Sky Ocean Rescue warns European Member States, as 12.4% of the EU marine area is considered under Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), but only 1.8% of those have a real and effective management plan.
Moreover, according to the report, current MPA zones do not represent the wider marine habitat, and the monitoring of the MPAs could be improved as many MPAs are not close to one another other and there is no consideration of the moving of species between the different areas.
The report urges European Member States to meet its commitments.
The Co-Evolve project ended in October 2019 with the final project meeting in Kalva (Greece) on 2-3 October 2019. The Co-Evolve4BG project started last September and continues the work. The new project will continue the analysis of the co-evolution of human activities and natural systems in touristic coastal areas in the Mediterranean, it will extend its field of action to Southern and Eastern Mediterranean areas.
The latest version of the Joint Action Plan (JAP) - on Mediterranean Coasts´ adaptation to climate change - of the Bologna Charter is available online. The aim of the JAP is to protect Mediterranean coasts from coastal erosion and improve coastal resilience to climate change.
The first Welsh National Marine Plan was published on 12 November 2019. It sets out Welsh policy for the next 20 years for the sustainable use of their seas.
Find the plan as well as related documents and information here.
Ministers Eoghan Murphy and Damien English have published the Irish Draft National Marine Planning Framework (NMPF) for public consultation.
The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government invites submissions on the Draft NMPF. The consultation period closes at 12:00 noon on 28th February 2020.
See all information, including about the regional public events being held to promote awareness and facilitate public and stakeholder participation on the Draft NMPF, here.
The Strategic Environmental Assessment North Seas Energy (SEANSE) project has produced several new results. This includes a baseline study on SEA as well as a data and gap analysis with annex including data layers.
Find these documents as well as more information on the project on this page.
The European MSP Platform´s Baltic Sea MSP expert, Kristina Veidemane, will be present at the Maritime Spatial Planning Forum “Global meets regional” held in Riga from 19th - 21st Nov 2019.
She will be an invited speaker to the session "What are the Success Factors and Mechanisms for Cross-Border Cooperation in Achieving Coherent MSP?" on the 20th.
She can be contacted through her email balticsea@msp-platform.eu
October
Spanish representatives from governmental agencies engaged in capacity building activities during a training course in Madrid (Spain) as part of the MSPglobal pilot project in the West Mediterranean. Between 15 and 17 October 2019, the national experts developed their technical and institutional knowledge on Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and Sustainable Blue Economy.
Theoretical sessions covered topics such as the MSPglobal Initiative and presentations on the implementation of MSP and Blue Economy at national level, the maritime sectors involved in these processes, existing and future conditions, as well as stakeholder participation and data and information in MSP.
With the support of the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the MSP Challenge game was used to simulate a planning process between three fictitious countries, during which participants were asked to define the vision, objectives, indicators, actions and stakeholders for short and long-term.
The course was co-organized with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation (MAEUEC), Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO) and Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO). It will contribute to the development of a regional roadmap for transboundary MSP and Sustainable Blue Economy in the West Mediterranean.
Above text is from original MSPglobal article found here, where further relevant documents and information on the MSPglobal pilot project in the Western Mediterranean can also be found.
Nikolay Valchev, the Assistance Mechanism´s MSP focal point for the Black Sea, attended the opening conference of the MARSPLAN BS II project on the 10th October, in Sofia, Bulgaria.
During the conference there were presentations and discussion on:
- The MARSPLAN – BS project, its main achievements and lessons learned;
- The MARSPLAN – BS II project main objectives, expected results, and work plan;
- The first draft of the Synthesis report on Maritime uses, Land-Sea Interactions, and Multi-Uses in a transboundary context;
- MSP in the Mediterranean Sea
Read more about the MARSPLAN BS II project here.
Find the presentations made at the conference here.
See our fiche on the MARSPLAN – BS project here (MARSPLAN - BS II fiche coming soon).
Contact our Black Sea focal point at blacksea@msp-platform.eu
On the 24th and 25th October 2019 the MSP Assistance Mechanism attended the kick-off meeting of the SIMAtlantic project, in Ireland.
See our fiche on the project here.
SIMAtlantic will be holding a workshop in the framework of the Atlantic Stakeholder Platform Conference 2019, to be held in Porto, Portugal, on the 12th and 13th November. See here for information.
Frédérick Herpers is our MSP focal point for the Atlantic sea basin, contact him through atlantic@msp-platform.eu
The project Maritime Spatial Planning for Sustainable Blue Economies (PLAN4BLUE) has recently ended.
The final newsletter, available here, presents highlights from the project results grouped in specific themes. Presentation of the highlights gives links in the Newsletter to some of the key publications of the project. All the publications are also available in the project’s Publications page.
Final recommendations can also be found through the same link, and are grouped into those made for a sustainable blue economy, for environmental management, for spatial analysis, and for cross-border collaboration.
See our page on the project, with related useful practices, here.
EMODnet Human Activities aims to facilitate access to existing marine data on activities carried out in EU waters, by building a single entry point for geographic information on 14 different themes. The portal makes available information such as geographical position, spatial extent of a series of activities related to the sea, their temporal variation, time when data was provided, and attributes to indicate the intensity of each activity.
The team has recently added new mapping tools to allow greater flexibility when interrogating data.
This includes:
- Possibility to draw a rectangle over the visible map layers and download the data selected as tabular data only. Particularly useful for non-GIS users.
- A printing and annotating of maps function.
- Transparency settings for map layers.
- Place name search name.
Click here for their website (original article).
In this publication DG MARE and EASME have brought together a sample of the projects funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund between 2014 and 2019.
Some of the projects brought to the fore include:
- MARSPLAN-BS: the first project helping Bulgarian and Romanian national authorities and researchers work together on the transposition of the EU´s Maritime Spatial Planning Directive
- OCEANMETISS: a project being developed in Réunion which custom builds maritime spatial planning tools to fit the local territory, and allows the department to preserve its rich biodiversity whilst boosting the economy
- ARCHEOSUB: a project which has designed underwater robots that, using acoustic signals, can reach otherwise inaccessible places and collect myriads of data.
Download full document here.