Launching the ECOMAR network in Vigo

ECOMAR is a new network of researchers funded by CYTED that puts together people from Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal to work on the role of marine protected areas in ecosystem services. The first annual meeting of this 4-year project is now taking place in Universidade de Vigo and hosted by Sebastian Villasante as the project PI.  The objective of this two-day meeting is to set the basis for collaboration between the institutions and the roadmap to achieve the objectives of the network.

ECOMAR has two main areas of action, one is capacity building through the exchange of researchers and training programs in the network, but also working together with policy makers to deliver useful outputs for natural protected areas management. The other area is on building research collaborations and select case studies in the different areas where we can study transformations in ecosystem services provision in marine protected areas.

Albert Norström from the Stockolm Resilience Centre participated in the workshop remotely presenting the global network PECS under Future Earth. Future Earth is a network of networks working on sustainability. Priscila Lopes from Brasil, Sandra Vilardy from Colombia and Silvia de Juan from CSIC Spain are some of the network researcher presenting their proposed case studies today.