The Monaco Forum, which took place in November 2021, concluded the 2020-2021 Forum process, which began at the end of 2020 with online consultations with the wider MPA community, bringing together managers, policy-makers, scientists, economic players, regional and international organisations, NGOs and donors from all Mediterranean countries and beyond.
The participatory process started in 2020 during the Covid pandemic with the leadership of the Network of Marine Protected Areas Managers in the Mediterranean (MedPAN), the Specially Protected Areas Regional Activity Centre (SPA/ RAC) of the United Nations Environment Programme / Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP/ MAP) – Barcelona Convention, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Mediterranean Programme.
A survey on limiting factors hindering the achievement of MPA targets was launched in October 2020, to which more than 360 responses were received. In November 2020, online working groups were convened to identify practical recommendations to overcome the limiting factors divided by thematic areas : Policy and Governance, Legislation and Enforcement, Management and Knowledge, Capacity and Awareness, and Sustainable Financing. These working groups included over 170 people from across the Mediterranean and beyond.
Questionnaires and virtual exchanges were used to take stock of the current state of MPAs and to share a vision of the challenges and priority actions to be taken in the Mediterranean in the coming years.
The post-2020 Roadmap
The post-2020 Mediterranean MPA Roadmap (and the Forum process in general) enables stakeholders at different levels to identify priority actions and coordination mechanisms to drive the implementation of international MPA objectives in the Mediterranean, and in particular supports the Barcelona Convention’s post-2020 regional strategy for MPAs and MCEAs adopted by the Barcelona Convention’s COP 22 in December 2021.
Noting the lack of progress made since the last roadmap and the difficulty in measuring that progress, a different approach will be taken with this Roadmap to ensure commitments are tracked periodically.
Thanks to this new platform, a mechanism for monitoring and evaluating implementation, with key indicators to be tracked is being developed.
The 2020/2021 Forum Programme and Proceedings
This Forum concludes the development process of the Post-2020 Mediterranean MPA Roadmap that began in October 2020 through an extensive multi-stakeholder online consultation. A significant part of the Forum’s programme is thus focused on the finalisation of the post-2020 MPA Roadmap and the development of an implementation framework aligned with the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework developed by the Convention on Biological Diversity and complementary to the Post-2020 Regional Strategy for MCPAs and OECMs in the Mediterranean developed in the framework of the Barcelona Convention.
Besides the Plenary sessions at the beginning and the end of the Forum, the programme included 30 Discussion sessions that contributed to the Roadmap recommendations, Thematic networking sessions gathered initiatives around a specific theme, Side events celebrated achievements or successful initiatives as well as Roadmap working sessions reflected the sessions exchanges in the Roadmap. More broadly, the Forum was an opportunity for networking and experience sharing within the MPA community.
The programme of the Forum was built around the 6 thematic areas of the Post-2020 Mediterranean MPA Roadmap objectives:
- Thematic area 1: Policy, Governance
- Thematic area 2: Legislation and Enforcement
- Thematic area 3: Management, Knowledge
- Thematic area 4: Capacity and Awareness
- Thematic area 5: Sustainable financing
- Thematic area 6: Cross-cutting topics
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Spotlight on the 2020 MPA Status
MedPAN and SPA/RAC are working alongside their partners (IUCN, WWF, local NGOs, research organisation, etc.) to establish an ecological network of MPA to protect at least 30 % of the marine and coastal waters which is representative of the Mediterranean’s diversity and made up of ecologically interconnected and well managed MPAs, in accordance with the latest guidelines from the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Barcelona Convention.
Every 4 years, MedPAN and SPA/RAC carry out the status of Mediterranean MPA to evaluate the progress that has been made, since the first inventory made in 2008, on the Mediterranean system of MPAs in view of the above-mentioned objectives: does the network cover 10 % of the Mediterranean in 2020, is it representative of the Mediterranean diversity, are MPAs well managed?
The main findings of the 2016 status of Marine Protected Areas in the Mediterranean Sea were that the target of 10 % protection was far from being achieved, that the network was not yet coherent and that MPA management was still insufficient. This 2020 report has used the 2019-2020 inventory made on MPAs (MAPAMED) and a survey questionnaire sent to managers not only to assess the progress made since 2016 but also to assess the achievement of the 2020 objectives set for the network of MPAs by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Barcelona Convention.
The 2021 Forum Edition Photos and Videos
