Presenting MPA Engage activities in a capacity building event in Montenegro

Montenegro is currently planning the implementation of new marine protected areas in the Adriatic, and the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism has organized a capacity building event where partners from different EU projects presented. As part of the team of the MPA Engage project, Elena briefly introduced the work developed by the Future Oceans Lab, and led by Francesca Barazzetta, on climate vulnerability assessments. At this point we have developed a methodology for the design and implementation of climate vulnerability assessments in Marine Protected Areas in the Mediterranean. This assessment is co-develop with Marine protected Areas from the project, such as Brijuni National Park in Croacia, from which Andrea Blašković also presented how they develop the activities of the project and incorporate them to their management plans.

After almost a year working in the project, we have developed an approach for climate vulnerability assessments in protected areas, providing training events to engage managers. During the summer this year, we co-developed the process of data collection and assisted on the questionnaire implementations to stakeholders like professional and recreational fishers, nautical activities or divers in the areas. As a result, we are now finalizing the vulnerability tool, an app that will calculate and illustrate how sea surface temperature increase and marine heatwaves increase the vulnerability of marine protected areas.

The event was held online on the 20th of November, with presentations by the local authorities and several initiatives in the Mediterranean. From MPA engage, we had 4 different presentations on the ongoing activities, from an overview of the project lead Joaquim Garrabou (IMS-CSIC), to the implementation of monitoring protocols by Ernesto Azzurro projects (CNR-IRBIM and SZN), Fabio Figurella from PADI, and Andrea from Brijuni National Park. These presentations, together with the vulnerability assessment, provided a nice overview of the implementation of activities towards the adaptation of marine protected areas in the project, which may serve as pilot initiatives to be transferred to other Mediterranean Marine protected Areas, such as the ones under development in Montenegro.