eMSP NBSR project participates in the European Maritime Day 2022

This year’s European Maritime Day (EMD) was organized in Ravenna, Italy on 19 and 20 May. EMD is an annual two-day event during which Europe’s maritime community meets to network, discuss and outline joint actions on maritime affairs and sustainable blue economy. The main theme was ‘Sustainable blue economy for green recovery’ and the event was organized by the European Commission, the City of Ravenna, the Ministry of Sustainable Infrastructures and Sustainable Mobility and the Region of Emilia-Romagna.

eMSP NBSR and building Community of Practices in relation to MSP also was part of the program. After the plenary opening of the conference, Nathalie Scheidegger from the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands took part on the panel in the session “Maritime spatial planning and stakeholder engagement” together with Antonia Leroy, Tom Wooley and Andrej Abramic with Christos Economou from DG MARE as moderator. eMSP NBSR was mentioned as an example on how cooperation between sea basins can take place.

Later on the second day eMSP NBSR project coordinator Nico Buytendijk took place in a panel during the workshop “Several maritime plans support multi use, yet realization is still lacking: what are the next steps?”, organized by Submariner Network. Other panelists were Martha Selwyn, Jessica Knoop and Benjamin Lehner and was moderated by Ivana Lukic. The central question was on how to incorporate ‘multi-use’ in MSP. Also here eMSP NBSR and the Community of Practice way of working has been mentioned as a good example for stakeholder engagement. The idea of developing ‘Mariparks’, nature inclusive business areas, was met with enthusiasm. ‘Maripark’ development is one of the case studies in eMSP NBSR project.

Last but not least, the first ideas on how to connect the new MSP project MSP Green with eMSP NBSR project were discussed with the project coordinator of MSP Green, Pierpaolo Campostrini. In the next months we will work on how to consolidate the cooperation between the two MSP projects, building on a Europe wide MSP network using Communities of Practice.

Written by eMSP NBSR project coordinator Nico Buytendijk