Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Tools Catalogue

The projects PANACeA and the Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Community (MBPC)

This Mediterranean community, MBPC – the successor to the PANACeA project (2016-2019,) is made of more than 300 nature conservation actors working together for environmental sustainability and biodiversity protection. The Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Community project (2019-2022) is a continuation of the PANACeA project (2016 to 2019) with an aim to advance networking and management efforts inside and outside protected areas (PAs) in the region. The community brings together key public and private players by mainstreaming management efforts for environmental sustainability and increasing the impact of biodiversity protection projects towards common identified strategic goals.

Since 2019, partners and projects of the Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Community, through three working groups, are promoting collaborative work and helping build capacity in partners and interested actors for effective biodiversity protection. Through the local adoption of management tools and approaches at regional and national levels, particularly around governance mechanisms, public and private sector cooperation and awareness of Mediterranean biodiversity and the challenges, our community continues to find and share solutions for effective biodiversity protection across the whole Mediterranean.

This cooperation project has built a community of nature conservation stakeholders, including managers, policy-makers, socioeconomic actors, civil society, and the scientific community, actively working to protect biodiversity and natural ecosystems in Mediterranean MPAs. Moreover, the initiative seeks further coordination with other funding programmes and projects and undertakes actions to increase the visibility and impacts of the results of different thematic biodiversity protection projects, also with the financial support Interreg MED programme, reaching a common and pre-identified strategic target audience. In 2022, the ENI CBC MED co-funded project ENSERES “ENhancing Socio-Ecological RESilience in Mediterranean coastal areas” contributed to the joint efforts by supporting the identification and addition of additional tools to the Mediterranean catalogue and their transfer to the Southern shore of the Mediterranean, particularly Lebanon and Tunisia.

Several policy aspects are addressed under the umbrella of these projects, covering biodiversity protection, sustainable use of natural resources, ecosystem-based management approaches, including Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) – as well as governance mechanisms. The Community is working to advance more effective biodiversity protection in the Mediterranean through enhanced monitoring and management of coastal and marine ecosystems, specifically targeting more sustainable fisheries, better adaptation to climate change effects, better prevention of marine litter and improved waste management.

The Biodiversity Protection Tools Catalogue

In the framework of the Project PANACeA, the MED Biodiversity Protection Community built the present Catalogue of tools for biodiversity protection in Mediterranean MPAs, covering different needs and requirements for ecosystem-based management.

This Catalogue is an update and extension of a previous report developed in the context of PANACeA, which included a preliminary version of some of the tools for ecosystem-based management in the Mediterranean, being developed by the Biodiversity Protection Community projects during the year 2018.

The tools included in this version of the Catalogue updated in 2022 are classified into several types: monitoring tools; management tools; geospatial tools; financial tools and other tools.

Monitoring tools have been developed to support the data collection and monitoring of specific ecological and socio-economic aspects, such as marine litter presence and distribution, and physico-chemical parameters associated with water quality and climate change.

Management tools aim to support marine protected area (MPA) managers in regulating specific sectors (e.g. small-scale fisheries), ecosystems (e.g. wetlands), or issues (e.g. marine litter, beach management), or in supporting an increased coordination with other maritime socio-economic sectors in the context of the Blue Economy and Marine Spatial Planning.

Geospatial tools have been developed to foster the access and sharing of spatial data and information, which are essential not only to support the informed management of Mediterranean protected areas, but also to generate new knowledge on ecological and natural resource management aspects, to support sustainable growth in Mediterranean protected areas and beyond.

The updated version of the original catalogue published in 2019 includes financial and capacity building tools to further complete the array of support available for more effective biodiversity protection in the region.

Overall, each of these tools is specially targeted to satisfy the specific needs and requirements of an ecosystem-based management, in line with the aim and the activities of the Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Community and other relevant projects identified. They may be adopted and implemented by a wide range of stakeholders, including MPA managers, local authorities, citizens, researchers, and a diverse range of stakeholders (e.g., fishermen, hunters, business sector).

General information on the target groups of the tool, the theme addressed, the type of tool, the pilot areas where the tools has been tested or is planning to be, applied, and a list of keywords to easily find the tool;

• The main problem that the tool aims to solve;
• The main requirements for the implementation of the tool, in relation to technological infrastructure, training, and investment;
• A brief description on how to use the tool, and the recommended timeline of implementation;
• The main challenges that may arise during the implementation of the tool, and suggestions on how to address them;
• A brief description of the main quantitative results of the tool, and the potential of transfer of this tool into other areas;
• Key numbers that illustrate the need to implement the tool, or its efficiency/effectiveness; and
• Project and pilot areas, including links of interest to platform pages, project results, detailed reports, or any other useful material for further information on the tool.

*This catalogue has been developed through a series of EU co-funded projects since 2016 within the Interreg Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection axis, with the support of the ENI CBC MED project ENSERES since 2022.

**Interreg MED Biodiversity Protection Community and ENI CBC MED ENSERES, engaging a wide array of partners:*