News
BlueSeeds delivered a training on the efficiency and sustainability of conservation projects in Monastir, Tunisia
From the 8th to the 12th of November 2021, BlueSeeds delivered this training course in partnership with the Notre Grand Bleu association and MedPAN, thanks to the help of the MAVA Foundation.
The objective of this training is to provide participants with several practical tools that will enable them to better understand the working environment of applied marine conservation, and build their capacity to manage marine conservation projects.
Participants came from a wide range of backgrounds and were based in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Among them, there were reprensentatives of:
- The environmental consulting company Abyss Environmental Services;
- The Agence de protection et d'aménagement du littoral (APAL);
- The Association de sauvegarde des zones humides du sud tunisien (ASZHST);
- The Fédération Tunisienne de l'environnement (FTED);
- The Haut Commissariat Eaux et forêts et lutte contre la désertification (HCFLCD);
- Méditerranée Action Nature;
- The Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Ressources Hydrauliques et de la Pêche Maritime;
- The Notre Grand Bleu association;
- The environmental consulting company Okianos;
- The Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (SPA/RAC);
- The Secrétariat général de la Mer;
- And the WWF North Africa.
BlueSeeds thanks them for their valuable contributions and for sharing their experiences!
In Tunisia, BlueSeeds started the impact assessment of the Together for the Med network's projects funded by the MAVA Foundation
BlueSeeds has been coordinating Together for the Med, a network of 50 partners carrying out 15 projects funded by the MAVA Foundation which aim to reduce fishing pressures in the Mediterranean Sea.
Our team members Auriane and Agathe went to Monastir and Tunis to meet with many stakeholders to assess the impact of their projects.
We collected information on the following projects led in Tunisia:
- The MedBycatch project that reduces the impact of bycatch on vulnerable species, coordinated by BirdLife and its partners
- The Species Knowledge project that fills key knowledge gaps on vulnerable species, coordinated by the SPA/RAC and its partners;
- The project of Conservation of Marine Turtles in the Mediterranean Region that enhances the protection and conservation of these species, coordinated by the SPA/RAC and its partners;
- The GFCM Regional Repository (GFCM-Lex) project that works towards a region-wide legal framework for the conservation of Mediterranean living marine resources and ecosystems, coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO);
- The Co-managed MPA / No-take Zones project that scales up co-managed and financially sustainable marine protected areas and no-take zones, coordinated by the WWF Mediterranean Marine Initiative and its partners;
- The project on Mitigating dolphin depredation that strengthens cetacean conservation and sustainable fisheries, coordinated by the ACCOBAMS and its partners;
- The MedKey Habitats project that inventories marine key habitats of conservation interest, coordinated by the SPA/RAC and its partners;
Thank you to all the reprensentatives of NGOs, local and regional public authorities, conservation project leaders, coordinators, focal points, field observers and fishers that took the time to meet us and present the impact of their actions.
The release of the impact report is planned for 2022.
In Brijuni, Croatia, we trained trainers on the effectiveness of conservation projects
We were in Brijuni, Croatia, where we were organizing a 5-day training course on the effectiveness and sustainability of marine conservation projects with the support of the MAVA Foundation and in partnership with National Park Brijuni.
After this course, trained participants now have the capacity and the will to train other people in their geographical area at national and sub-regional levels.
Always a pleasure to share knowledge and expertise for the benefit of marine conservation!
The BlueMooring team attended the Mediterranean Mooring Forum 2021 in Marseille
BlueSeeds' Incubator Coordinator Louis Vercauteren and Project Officer for BlueMooring Yousr Ben Fadhel attended the Mediterranean Mooring Forum that took place in Marseillle on the 12th of October.
This forum was an opportunity to talk to mooring site managers in person, and present our mooring management tool BlueMooring during a plenary session.
A fruitful BlueSeeds bootcamp at the Université Côte d'Azur
It was awesome to meet the students of the first BlueSeeds bootcamp class at the Université Côte d’Azur! We trained motivated and ambitious future graduates, and saw them take on the challenges of marine conservation finance in their own way with ease.
The program included meetings with experts, role-playing, and debates. This 5-day course led students to question the current limitations of marine conservation and the levers to overcome them.
Well done guys!
We're back from Mauritania!
Timothée Cook, our super trainer, had the pleasure to meet the managers of two emblematic marine protected areas of West Africa: the Banc d'Arguin National Park and the Diawling National Park.
The goal: to exchange together on their financing gap in order to consolidate the financial plan of these two sites, and thus allow the achievement of marine conservation objectives.
Thank you for your motivation and your warm welcome!
Our team attended the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2021!
The World Conservation Congress has closed its doors last week. We forgot, for a few days, Zoom and Teams. After 18 months, with my BlueSeeds team, we were finally able to exchange face-to-face with our partners, colleagues and friends on our marine conservation projects. We came out full of energy and motivation to continue our adventure and contribute to international conservation goals.
5,000 people, hundreds of workshops, conferences and a great dynamic around marine conservation… From this congress, I am particularly pleased with the announcement of the planned One Ocean Summit, the objective of 5% of full protection for the Mediterranean in 2027 (against 0.2% today) and the official launch of the new fund of the Highly Protected Mediterranean Initiative.
This Congress concluded on the urgency of feeding the ambition of marine protected areas and ensuring sustainable revenues for conservation initiatives. We now need to find effective ways to help site managers recover what is most valuable to them: the time and resources needed to protect and restore marine ecosystems. With BlueSeeds, we are up to the challenge of empowering marine conservation.
— Thomas Binet, Founder of BlueSeeds
Our mission in Guinea
Timothée and Guillaume spent two days in Coyah with all the representatives of the protected areas of Guinea and the Guinean Office of Parks and Reserves (OGUIPAR). This mission was meant to deliver trainings on business planning and strategy within the framework of the program Small initiatives and financial mechanisms for the conservation of marine and coastal biodiversity of West Africa (PIMFAO) of the Network of Marine Protected Areas of West Africa (RAMPAO) in collaboration with our partner Baastel.
For these managers, only salaries are guaranteed in the long term. Therefore, training should enable them to identify their financial needs and build their business plan. The final objective: obtain new financing sources to allow them to reach their conservation goals. We identified promising financing sources and financing mechanisms for their activities.
Participants were strongly involved! To be continued...
Our visitor fees support program for MPAs is launched!
On July 16, our kickoff meeting marked the beginning of our support to MPAs in setting up visitor fees. The MPAs that joined this program are:
- Karaburun-Sazan, Albania;
- Platamuni & Katič, Montenegro;
- Gökova, Turkey;
- Šibenik-Knin, Croatia.
With this program, we are helping these MPAs develop a more sustainable financing strategy to fund their conservation actions with.
BlueSeeds is back in Lastovo, Croatia for the second chapter of its incubator
Two years after our first intervention and one Blue Local Incubator later, we are happy to be back in Lastovo's marine protected area in Croatia!
The goal? To strengthen the local partnership, to present the results of this first BLI, and to advance on the next steps.
As a reminder, the Blue Local Incubator aims at helping 7 microenterprises to develop: eco-tourism, recycling, olive oil production, pescatourism, electric bike rental, wine tourism. We are convinced that local entrepreneurship can be a lever to involve the residents of Lastovo in marine conservation.
The same jury that selected the incubated projects a few months ago met in Lastovo: WWF Adria, the Cooperative for Ethical Financing (ZEF), Fundación Capital, Lastovo Nature Park, the municipality, and the BlueSeeds team.
OCTO and NatureServe talk about BlueSeeds' financing mechanisms!
We are really proud to see our guide on financing mechanisms, our training modules, and our support programs listed among the relevant tools for marine conservation in the last newsletter of Ecosystem-Based Management Tools Network, coordinated by NatureServe and OCTO - Open Communication for the Ocean.
EBM tools network is a great source of information for planning and management tools for coastal-marine ecosystem based management (EBM), marine protected area (MPA), marine spatial planning (MSP) and integrated land-sea planning.
Its mission is to promote healthy ecosystems and communities by increasing the knowledge of coastal-marine practitioners to apply tools that help incorporate ecosystem-based thinking into management decisions.
The report "Ocean of Solutions to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss" by Ocean & Climate Platform is now available
While the vulnerability of the ocean is increasingly visible, our partner the Ocean & Climate Platform was keen to highlight the ocean as a source of future solutions to stem the loss of biodiversity and fight against climate change, through the production of a solution report.
This positive report is the result of contributions from nearly 60 member organizations of the Ocean & Climate Platform. These ocean-based initiatives are science-based and contribute to reaching goals in biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation.
We are particularly proud to see our guide on financing mechanisms and our support programs for managers of marine protected areas included in this report.
Go and have a look!
The Mediterranean MPA Forum in a nutshell
Bringing together about 500 marine conservation stakeholders in the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean MPA Forum ended on Friday, June 4, 2021. A common observation was made: the lack of human and material resources does not allow MPAs to achieve their ecological goals.
Among the recommendations discussed during the 3 days, BlueSeeds took part in the discussions related to the recommendations for improving the financial sustainability of conservation initiatives.
These included :
- The need for a better understanding of national and regional financial mechanisms that can be mobilized,
- The need to strengthen the link between financial planning and the management plan (an MPA's governing document) while developing new financing mechanisms for MPAs,
- The need to improve collaboration among all conservation stakeholders.
These recommendations will be included in the post-2020 roadmap for Mediterranean MPAs, finalized and validated in November in Monaco, to be integrated into the new post-2020 global biodiversity framework (CBD COP 15).
Visitor Fees - Support Programme
You work for a Mediterranean MPA and you want to implement a visitor fee mechanism in your MPA? Send your application & join us !
Launch of the "Together for the Med" platform
All these actors are mobilized around a single objective: to reduce the impact of fishing on marine ecosystems in the Med.
We find for example the association of managers of Mediterranean MPAs @MedPAN, the regional center for specially protected areas of the UN Environment @SPA/RAC, @WWF Mediterranean, @ACCOBAMS, @GFCM-FAO, @BirdLife and many other NGOs, research centers and local NGOs.
To value each of the actors, we have created an online platform "Together for the Med", and today we are pleased to announce its release! Discover our partners and learn more about their success stories in the coming months.
Call for Grants for Mediterranean Small Scale Fishers
BlueMooring
The first to emmerger is the project BlueMooring.org This is a 100% free platform for AMP to both manage the management of moorings, automatically collect the rights and communicate more effectively to visitors. This platform is coupled with an application for boaters allowing them to book and pay for moorings while discovering the conservation actions carried out by the MPA.
Meet Fernando !
He is currently a Master's student in Science, Conservation & Valorisation of Marine Resources (MARRES) at the Université Côte d'Azur in Nice. From climate action planning fellow at the San Francisco Department of Environment to head of an upcycling micro-business in Tanzania, Fernando is a jack of all trades!
We are happy to have him with us for the next 6 months!
Release of our guide on financing MPAs
This guide provides a simple and concrete step-by-step methodology for implementing a sustainable financial strategy. It is intended for all stakeholders in marine conservation.
Thanks to all our partners MedPAN-network, WWF, SPA RAC, MAVA Foundation. The guide is now online, go and have a look at it, give us your feedback!
Together for the Med: a network of 46 conservation actors led by BlueSeeds!
Meet our trainers!
Since
2 weeks now, Guillaume and Timothée have been delivering - in collaboration
with MedPAN and Brijuni National Park - training sessions to managers and
financial officers of 9 Mediterranean MPAs from Lebanon, Egypt, Croatia, Italy,
Turkey and Slovenia.
They have been holding one-to-one meetings to advise each
of these MPAs on business planning and sustainable financial strategies. These
privileged dialogues with local conservationists have shown how strategies to
protect biodiversity vary from country to country, depending on local threats,
natural features, the history of local human settlements and regional or
national legislation.
The support of conservationnists towards
sustainable financing is a core part of BlueSeeds' missions. Feedback on this
training programme from participants is very encouraging so far. BlueSeeds
believes that capacity building is
an essential component of delivering conservation to the Mediterranean Sea.
Start of business plan training courses for MPAs managers
Happy Blue Year 2021!
Participation in the FARNET event bringing together the European network of fisheries areas
The team is growing!
Common evolution of the HQWW - Whale Watching label
The team is growing !
Call for expression of interest, Legal consultancy
Team seminar in Banyuls-sur-mer
When you say seminar, you also say team bulding! It even seems that a group of 7 sea lion with masks and snorkels were seen in the Cerbères-Banyuls marine reserve observing groupers and the incredible mediterranean protected biodiversity.
The team is growing !
Thanks to his expertise in marine ecology and his experience as a lecturer, now in the position of training officer, it is Timothée who develops our training courses, making them creative and pedagogical. He also actively contributes to BlueSeeds' R&D and scientific communication activities. Welcome among us Tim!
BlueSeeds is recruiting two mission officers!
Strategy, international trainings, capitalisation of experience, creation of educational contents, experience capitalization, science communication to a lay audience, project management, management of international partner networks and field missions... You like intellectual challenges, you want to put your energy into making marine conservation more impactful and sustainable!
Apply before August 14th --> "Join us" in the top right corner.
The team is growing!
Passionate about diving, she has worked in Indonesia, the Maldives and French Polynesia for the protection of sharks. After three years of practice at EY Société d'Avocats in Paris, she decided to put her experience and skills to work for the protection of the oceans and explore funding mechanisms for sustainable marine conservation.
BlueSeeds moves into the Campement, Darwin Ecosystem
A new support mission for a local NGO in Tunisia
Results of the call for Blue Businesses
The vision emerging from the first phase outlines the creation of an "eco-oasis of Croatia" which could revitalize the isolated island of Lastovo and stem the departure of its inhabitants to the mainland. The Blue Businesses proposals cover many issues such as fishing with pesca-tourism and fishermen's reconversion projects, agricultural production with the ecological certification granted to the producers of Pijula olive oil, the creation of educational farms, the collection and recycling of bulky waste, as well as many educational, cultural and eco-tourism projects linked to environmental awareness.
The time has come to evaluate the environmental impact of these Blue Businesses, their social impacts on the local community, as well as their economic viability in order to be able to enter the incubation phase. To be continued!
Business plan for Maltese MPAs
Sustainable finance for the Mediterranean MPA Managers' Network
Training in financial planning for Albanian protected areas
First meeting of the Platform for Cooperation of the Mediterranean FLAGs
Training mission for Tunisian NGOs
Intervention at the G7 Ocean Pavilion in Biarritz
Any blue idea for a green island?
First BlueSeeds mission in Croatia
A multiplication of field missions!
Among these, our trip to Cabras, Sardinia, enabled us to work with the Medsea Foundation and the MPA "Peninsola di Sinis - Mal di Ventre" teams on the mechanisms to be put in place to protect the Posidonia meadows, which are abundant in the area. Exchanges with fishermen's cooperatives, yachtsmen's associations and the town council's services have enabled us to gain an exhaustive view of local pressures and issues and to calibrate BlueSeeds support as best as possible.
BlueSeeds speaks at the ESAFON conference "Swiss Impact Investment Initiative"
BlueSeeds participates in conservation finance forums
A second event, Blue Invest, took place in Malta in January. On the occasion of a round table on the obstacles and opportunities of financing for projects with environmental impact, BlueSeeds was able to present its approach and expose its vision, resulting from a deep understanding of the projects and the field. Our message: if projects lack financial structuring, investors lack openness and must find alternatives to a risk-led vision!
BlueSeeds spoke on the Tunisian radio!
Whilst BlueSeeds was still a project carried by Vertigo Lab, Guillaume Le Port was invited by the association Notre Grand Bleu to participate in a radio broadcast in Tunis on Sunday 8 July to present the BlueSeeds project. To watch Guillaume's appearance on the radio, click here (from 17'25'').
Support for the financial sustainability of the future MPA of Kuriat, Tunisia
After a site visit on Saturday, the BlueSeeds team and the members of Notre Grand Bleu conducted two initial working sessions on the association's business model. Meetings with local and national representatives of the Agency for the Protection and Development of the Coastal Zone were also organised in parallel for the sustainability of the management of the future marine and coastal protected area of the Kuriat Islands.
BlueSeeds is born!
