Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona

From 14-16 October, Malaga hosted an international meeting on biodiversity protection and management, organised to bring to a close the Interreg MED Panacea project, led by the ETC at the University of Malaga (ETC-UMA) in partnership with institutions such as the AMB and MedCities.

The event assembled around 100 representatives from the Mediterranean Region, who discussed effective cooperative mechanisms to ensure more integrated management of natural resources. In addition, numerous European institutional and political actors pledged their support to the initiative by signing the Declaration on ecosystem-based approaches for biodiversity protection and management.

This Declaration represents the adoption of a holistic, inclusive, ecosystem-based and cross-disciplinary approach to conserving and managing the coastal and marine environment and lends support to cooperative mechanisms, tools and actions. MedCities and representatives from the cities of Marseilles and Malaga embraced the manifesto along with numerous institutions from different domains. The AMB plans to align itself with the declaration shortly.

Nature conservation: Everyone's business

On 15 October, the OMAU hosted a series of interactive debates and workshops which culminated, on the 16th, with discussion sessions focused on existing policy measures and the need for fundamental and coordinated change to halt the loss of biodiversity on all levels.

One of the main conclusions was the overall consensus that nature conservation must be operational and extend to all segments of society. In addition to better and more effectively managing marine protected areas, authorities across a wide range of domains must facilitate collaboration with the world of research, the private sector and legislation at all levels, and foster stronger coordination, particularly in areas that are ecologically fundamental to the correct functioning of the ecosystems, regardless of their administrative borders: an ecosystem-based management approach.

The Declaration will be shared online among citizens, private companies, public institutions, universities, research centres and NGOs in order to help people to understand the value of the biodiversity that sustains the Mediterranean and the need for everyone to cooperate, on both institutional and individual level, to better protect biodiversity in the Mediterranean.