PANACeA – MBPC – Mediterranean Biodiversity Protection Community

Mainstreaming management efforts for environmental sustainability

Project summary

The Mediterranean is a biodiversity hotspot with varied socio-economic features and common environmental challenges and pressures. To effectively preserve and sustainably manage this shared natural capital, there is a need to raise awareness among all societal sectors and territorial actors on the importance of getting prepared and acting together to achieve a good environmental status for the benefit of all.

The MBPC project is a collaborative initiative that offers a science-management-policy platform for knowledge, dialogue and action, in partnership with 15 thematic projects, to help build bridges between policy frameworks and environmentally positive practices, building on science and effective solutions in place to address biodiversity and ecosystem protection. MBPC so aims to build the capacities of Mediterranean players by strengthening networks for further outreach, creating opportunities for transferring best tools, capitalizing on the knowledge and experience of a community made of 342 partners in 24 countries, and making knowledge available through an online capitalization platform at biodiversity.uma.es.

Our role

ETC-UMA has been the lead partner during the first phase of the project (PANACeA) from 2016 to 2019, and is leading the MBPC project from 2019 to 2022. In addition to coordinating the overall partnership and its activities, the ETC-UMA plays a key role in:

  • Building a community of individuals and institutions aiming at concerted actions towards biodiversity protection and management.
  • Devising and supporting joint publications, events and actions in the community, fostering additional partnerships with organizations and initiatives outside the partnership.
  • Ensuring the mainstreaming and transfer of key messages and tools towards targeted policies and events relevant to environmental protection in the Mediterranean.
  • Leading the action plan for the MBPC working group on biodiversity protection and transboundary challenges addressing climate change, marine pollution and governance across borders.
  • Maintaining and feeding the main online capitalization tool for biodiversity protection in the project (biodiversity.uma.es) with spatial data and knowledge originating from 15 Interreg Med projects and other external sources of relevance to Mediterranean biodiversity protection.
  • Developing and updating the first thematic database on research efforts addressing the interactions of marine litter and biodiversity in the Mediterranean and its analysis.

Main outputs

INTERREG MED BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER

INTERREG MED BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION COMMUNITY PUBLICATIONS (2016-2022)

More about it

Dania Abdul Malak

Project Coordinator

daniaabdulmalak@uma.es

Dania Abdul Malak is a senior environmental researcher and Director of the European Topic Centre at the University of Malaga (ETC-UMA). She has over 15 years’ experience in environmental assessment and management...

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Sonsoles San Román

Communication Officer

sonsolessanroman@uma.es

Sonsoles joined ETC-UMA as Communication officer to support the establishment of a two-way communication channel with the scientific community, promoting an effective communication of ETC-UMA´s outcomes...

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Antonio Sánchez

MBP Knowledge Platform

a_sanchez@uma.es

Antonio Sánchez has developed his career focused on Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing tools, especially in the management and processing of data to calculate indicators and generate illustrative maps of environmental problems of all kind...
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Our partners

MBPC PROJECT PARTNERS

European Topic Centre - University of Malaga (lead partner)

MedCities

InterMediterranean Commission - Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (IMC – CPMR)

Plan Bleu for the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean

Latte Creative

Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism

Marine Institute Croatia

MBPC ASSOCIATED PARTNERS

Adriatic Ionian Euroregion (Croatia)

American University of Beirut- FAFS (Lebanon)

Arab Network for Environment and Development (RAED) (Egypt)

Arco Latino (Spain)

Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation of IUCN (IUCN-Med) (Spain)

Government of Catalonia, Directorate General of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs (Spain)

ISPRA (Italy)

IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA)

Legambiente (Italy)

Mediterranean Protected Areas Network (MedPAN) (France)

Municipality of Herceg Novi (OHN) (Montenegro)

Public agency for promotion of entrepreneurship and developing projects of Municipality of Izola (Slovenia)

Region of Crete (Greece)

Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (France)

Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RAC/SPA) (Tunis)

Regione Lazio (Italy)

Service de protection de la nature et politiques des forêts de la Région Autonome de Sardaigne (Italy)

Small Islands Organisation - SMILO (France)

The Resource Environmental Center REC Albania

Tour du Valat Foundation (France)

University of Balamand / Université de Balamand (Lebanon)

Ville de Marseille (France)

WWF Mediterranean (Italy)

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Project co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund



Looking back and forth to Mediterranean Forests

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

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 ...
Job opening at the ETC-UMA: Senior Specialist in Nature Based Solutions for Climate Adaptation

Job opening at the ETC-UMA: Senior Specialist in Nature Based Solutions for Climate Adaptation

The European Topic Centre on Spatial Analysis and Synthesis (ETC-UMA) is an international center that develops and applies scientific knowledge and cutting-edge technology to address environmental issues and enhance the status of ecosystems at all spatial scales targeting various stakeholders ...
The Earth from Space shown by ETC-UMA at FANTEC 2023

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

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) ...