Joint Black Sea Basin Workshop: results

The Black Sea Basin Workshop “Bridging Maritime Spatial Planning with the European Green Deal and better Integrate Marine Protected Areas” was successfully conducted last week on June 20^th, in Varna, Bulgaria as a hybrid event. The workshop was jointly organised by the three European Union sister projects MSP-GREEN, MPA Europe and MSP4BIO, and hosted by the MPS-GREEN partner from Bulgaria – Center for Coastal and Marine Studies (CCMS). The workshop aimed to present and discuss at the Black Sea Basin level how the MSP could strengthen and promote better integration and implementation of the EGD maritime objectives (based on MSP-GREEN draft recommendations). The Black Sea Workshop also addressed the specific EGD topic of improved science-based MSP for biodiversity protection and better alignment of MPAs management and their integration in MSP.

The workshop got together 30 experts (in person and online) from MSP and MPAs governance in Bulgaria and Romania, regional key actors (Black Sea Commission and Organsiation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation), blue economy sectors, environmental organisations and research to discuss on these important topics, MSP-GREEN recommendations for making MSP framework an enabler for the EGD maritime goals and to identify regional challenges, priorities and the most relevant key recommendations. The workshop referred to the Black Sea strategies and other relevant regional sea initiatives, also involving the non-EU countries in the EGD ambitions, MSP process and biodiversity protection and restoration, and linked them to the objectives of the Sustainable Blue Economy.

After the presentation of MSP-GREEN objectives, main results, deliverables and draft recommendations on MSP-EGD nexus, a productive discussion was held with the workshop participants in order to reflect on regional specificities and identify relevant topics, actions and priorities to be taken into consideration by MSP at sea basin level. The second part of discussion was dedicated on the draft recommendations from a sea basin perspective:

■ Identification of key EGD MSP challenges and enablers relevant for the Black Sea

■ Identification of the main recommendations relevant for the Black Sea

Biodiversity and ecosystem protection and restoration, importance of transboundary collaboration, need of publicly available, precise and easily accessible data, climate change mitigation and adaptation, opportunities for co-location and multi-use of activities and MPAs, re-conciliation of policy objectives and engaging with regional strategies, fair and inclusive stakeholder engagement were in particular highlighted as regional priorities for the Black Sea Basin. MSP should be science- and ecosystem-based, and sufficiently flexible and dynamic to integrate in a sustainable way the important maritime socio-economic activities and biodiversity protection.

Thanks to all experts for their active participation and valuable feedbacks, it will be acknowledged in the final project reports and documents, including the Policy Brief for the Black Sea.