Blue Connect
Strict protection, restoration and co-management of marine protected areas to ensure effective ecosystem conservation and improved connectivity of blue corridors
Project summary
The main objective of BLUE CONNECT project is to directly support effective achievement of marine conservation and restoration targets in the EU and beyond by advancing implementation of the European Green Deal and its EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the European Restoration Law, and the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework of the Convention for Biological Diversity, ensuring the implementation of the EU Mission’s "Restore our Ocean and Waters". A widely applicable ecosystem-based Blueprint will result from applying an innovative, collaborative, science-based and data-driven systematic approach for the designation and management of marine protected areas, including shifting their status from “protected” to “strictly protected” and quantifying their conservation effectiveness.
A co-development approach in cooperation with site-specific stakeholders and citizens in 12 Demonstration sites is set to establish co-ownership for the effective conservation management and their long-term commitment to conservation objectives. The Blueprint will be developed as transferable and scalable beyond the project Demo sites, coupled with a deployment and transferability plan.
Our role
ETC-UMA leads WP5 “Ensuring effective conservation” with the objective of developing a system for monitoring marine conservation effectiveness and assessing conservation outcomes, building on the integrated framework for definition of conservation objectives and governance toolbox for co-defining conservation measures. It is responsible for the deliverable on Best practices in MPA monitoring and assessment through the identification and appraisal of the most relevant monitoring and assessment frameworks / systems to select the most suitable one to be applied in the Demo sites.
In addition to active involvement in all WPs, ETC-UMA in cooperation with the Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico (MITERD) will engage with the Spanish Cetacean Migration Corridor as one of the demonstration sites in focusing the BLUECONNECT Blueprint implementation to the preparation of the management plan/Establishment of co-management/ Connectivity Advisory site.
More about it
Maria del Mar Otero
mar_otero@uma.es
Maria del Mar Otero is a coastal and marine expert with long experience in the Mediterranean, Europe and Asia. She holds a PhD in Marine Science, an MSc in Shellfish Resource Management and a BSc in Marine Science...
Barbara Bauer
barbara.bauer@uma.es
Barbara Bauer, is an experienced ecologist with over a decade of expertise in aquatic ecology, biodiversity conservation, and environmental management. Holding a PhD in Aquatic Ecology from the University of Potsdam...
Our partners
Submariner Network For Blue Growth EWIV - Submariner, Germany - Coordinator
Vlaams Instituut Voor De Zee - VLIZ, Belgium
Institut Royal Des Sciences Naturelles De Belgique - RBINS, Belgium
Centyr Za Bregovi I Morski Izsledvaniya - CCMS, Bulgaria
Salt Research As - SALT, Norway
Universiteit Gent - UGent, Belgium
Stichting Deltares - Deltares, The Netherlands
Norsk Institutt For Vannforskning - NIVA, Norway
Tartu Ulikool - UTartu, Estonia
Fondazione WWF Mediterranean - WWF Med, Italy
University of the Highlands and Islands - UHI, United Kingdom
Submon – SUBMON, Spain
Universidade Dos Açores - UAc, Portugal
Institutul National De Cercetare - Dezvoltare Marina “Grigore Antipa” – INCDM, Romania
The Baltic Marine Environment Protection – Helcom Commission, Finland
Balgarska Fondatsiya Bioraznoobrazie – BBF, Bulgaria
Fundação Maio Biodiversidade - FMB, Cabo Verde
RESTORE4Cs 1st Policy Brief: How can coastal wetlands help achieve EU climate goals?
The first RESTORE4Cs Policy Brief of RESTORE4Cs, “How can coastal wetlands help achieve EU climate goals?“, highlights the importance of European coastal wetlands for reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions. The key messages of the first RESTORE4Cs Policy Brief include: Coastal wetlands are important natural carbon stores, ...
Mapping the Impact of Blue Tourism in the Mediterranean
The IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation with the support of ETC-UMA in the framework of the Blue Tourism Initiative, has released a comprehensive report entitled “Mapping the Impact of Blue Tourism in the Mediterranean: Vulnerability Assessment of Coastal and Marine ...
StrategyMedFor Presented at Annual Medforval Meeting 2024
StrategyMedFor was prominently featured at the Annual Medforval Meeting 2024, held from June 5-7 in Fontecchio, Italy. The event brought together 25 practitioners from national parks and natural reserves across 9 Mediterranean countries, providing a valuable platform for StrategyMedFor to ...
Celebrating leadership in environmental management: an interview with Dania Abdul Malak
From designing integrated ecosystem assessments in Europe and the Mediterranean to transforming outcomes into evidence-based recommendations for regional stakeholders, the European Topic Centre on Spatial Analysis and Synthesis (ETC-UMA) stands as a flagship for territorial cooperation. At the forefront of ...
Save the date! Unlocking solutions for coastal conservation in Europe
How can coastal wetlands respond to major European Union objectives such as climate neutrality, biodiversity protection, and pollution reduction? What key role do coastal wetlands play in achieving EU commitments for climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation? The European Topic Centre ...
Towards a Strategy for the Sustainable Management of Mediterranean Forests (StrategyMedFor)
The StrategyMedFor project, co-financed by the Interreg Euro-MED programme, was launched at the University of Malaga during a two day meeting that took place on March 18 and 19, 2024. The European Topic Centre on Spatial Analysis and Synthesis (ETC-UMA), ...
Collaborative science for forests by ETC-UMA showcased in Slovenia during the COP23
As UNEP MAP partner organization, ETC-UMA recently engaged in the organization of a session with Mediterranean institutions under the topic of climate change, entitled: From COASTAL to FOREST ecosystems: Mediterranean Nature-based Solutions to tackle climate change and ensure the Resilience ...
Tools for conserving the Spanish coast
On the initiative of the Instituto Universitario Hábitat Territorio y Digitalización (iHTD) of the University of Malaga, around 70 representatives of Spanish public administrations, researchers, architecture and environmental science players and civil society signed up to the second debate on ...
GreenEye System: a cloud-based system to monitor wetlands in Andalusia
Developed in the frame of the LifeWatch INDALO project cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for the study of biodiversity and global change in Andalucia, GreenEye System, this new cloud-based monitoring system, provides useful tools for wetlands’ assessment, ...
Looking back and forth to Mediterranean Forests
Timely published to enrich the knowledge available to fight fires and climate change challenges after an extremely hot summer, the proceedings of the Seventh Mediterranean Forest Week “Forest and Ecosystem Restoration for the next Mediterranean Generations” held from 21 to ...
More space for innovative Mediterranean forest data partnerships
The report entitled A knowledge baseline on Mediterranean forests supported by innovation launched in July by ETC-UMA provides a highlight of what Mediterranean countries and institutions are doing to integrate new digital, satellite and Artificial Intelligence technologies into forest monitoring ...
The Earth from Space shown by ETC-UMA at FANTEC 2023
Students from 80 centers from all over Andalusia came together on Friday 19 May 2023 at the High School of Industrial Engineering of the University of Malaga to participate, one more year, in the Andalusian Technology Fair 2023. Antonio Sanchez ...
ETC-UMA launches new technologies applied to ecosystem knowledge
Built on the Google Earth Engine cloud computing platform, the new wetland monitoring system based on remote sensing data, developed by ETC-UMA and presented in April 2023 at the National Centre for Environmental Education (CENEAM by its acronym in Spanish) ...
Celebrating and calibrating Mediterranean forests
The Mediterranean basin is the third-richest hotspot in the world in terms of plant biodiversity and one of the greatest sources of endemic plants on Earth. Its plant diversity accounts for 25 000 plant species, 60 percent of which are ...