New webinar series of MPA-Engage project

MPA-ENGAGE consortia is announcing the second series of webinars to help stakeholders of MPAs to develop a climate change adaptation and mitigation action plan.  Participants will learn on how to track climate change impacts in MPAs, assess their ecological and socio-economic vulnerability and engage local communities in participatory actions.

These webinar series are carried out within the framework of the MPA-ENGAGE project ‘Engaging Mediterranean key actors in Ecosystem Approach to manage Marine Protected Areas (MPA) to face Climate change’. MPA-ENGAGE is an Interreg Med funded project aiming to support MPA managers to adapt to and mitigate the ongoing climate change effects in the Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean Sea is one of the areas severely affected by climate change and Marine protected areas (MPAs) represent the pillars of the climate change adaptation strategy.

These webinar series will start in March 24 with Module 1 on social-ecological vulnerability assessment guidelines, and it will finish with Module 2 on the methodological approaches for monitoring climate change effects in Mediterranean Sea.  Webinars are free but the registration is required, all participants have open access to tools and materials. 

The goal of Module 1 webinar is to support participants in understanding and developing a socio-ecological vulnerability assessment in their MPA to evaluate the weaknesses of the area to improve local management. While the  Module 2  aims to provide to participants understanding and familiarity with nine monitoring protocols related to different climate change indicators such as: sea water temperature, mass-mortalities, changes in fish abundance, monitoring the health of Posidonia oceanica, Pinna nobilis and sea urchin population and using Local Ecological Knowledge to reconstruct time series of historical changes.

Over the webinars, the attendees as managers, marine conservation and environment administrations, scientists, experts and practitioners working in MPAs will develop and improve their skills on how to:

• Understanding the importance of a vulnerability assessment as a tool for MPAs management practice.
• Assess the ecological and socio-economic vulnerability of MPAs to climate change
• Monitor in a harmonised way the climate change impacts in MPAs
• Access the knowledge of local experts, such as fishers and divers, to gather key information regarding climate related changes in the marine biota

Join our webinar series, and register NOW. But, do not worry if you will not be able to follow them, the webinars will be recorded and available online afterwards, we will share the links on our website and social media.

You will find more information about each webinar series at: https://mpa-engage.interreg-med.eu/

We look forward to “seeing” you online.