Published January 25, 2017 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Advancing marine conservation in European and contiguous seas with the MarCons Action

Authors/Creators

  • 1. <div>University of the Aegean, Department of Marine Sciences, Mytilene, Greece</div>
  • 2. <div>Blue World Institute of Marine Research and Conservation, Veli Lošinj, Croatia</div>
  • 3. <div>Ecopath International Initiative (EII) Research Association, Barcelona, Spain</div><div>Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain</div>
  • 4. <div>Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche ed Ambientali, Università del Salento, CoNISMa, Lecce, Italy</div>
  • 5. <div>Institute of marine biology, University of Montenegro, Kotor, Montenegro</div>
  • 6. <div>Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, Nice, France</div>
  • 7. <div>Department of Geography, University College London, London, United Kingdom</div>
  • 8. <div>Department of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem , Jerusalem, Israel</div>
  • 9. <div>Department of Palaeontology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria</div>
  • 10. <div>CNR-IAMC Laboratorio di Biologia Marina, Castellammare del Golfo, Italy</div>
  • 11. <div>Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel</div>
  • 12. <div>Laboratoire d'Excellence, CORAIL, France</div><div>National Center for Scientific Research, CRIOBE, Perpignan, France</div>
  • 13. <div>Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, , Serbia</div>
  • 14. <div>CNR-IAMC, Castellammare del Golfo, Italy</div>
  • 15. <div>Department of Geosciences, University of Malta, , Malta</div>
  • 16. <div>Department of Ecology and Hydrology, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain</div>
  • 17. <div>Van Hall Larenstein, University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, Netherlands</div>
  • 18. <div>Blue World Institute of Marine Research and Conservation, Veli Lošinj, Croatia</div><div>Croatian Natural History Museum, Zagreb, Croatia</div>
  • 19. <div>Enalia Physis, Nicosia, Cyprus</div>
  • 20. <div>NESP Threatened Species Recovery hub, Centre for Biodiversity & Conservation Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia</div><div>The Biodiversity Research Group, The School of Biological Sciences, ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED), The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia</div>
  • 21. <div>National Institute of Aquatic Resources, Technical University of Denmark, Charlottenlund, Denmark</div>
  • 22. <div>Department of Biodiversity, Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia</div><div>Marine Sciences Program, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Pula, Croatia</div>
  • 23. <div>Estonian Marine Institute, University of Tartu, Tallinn, Estonia</div>
  • 24. <div>Department of Ecology, School of Biology, Aristotle University of, Thessaloniki, Greece</div>
  • 25. <div>Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, , United States of America</div>
  • 26. <div>Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom</div>
  • 27. <div>Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel</div>
  • 28. <div>Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics Dept, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, , Italy</div>
  • 29. <div>National Institute of Oceanography, Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research , Haifa, Israel</div>
  • 30. <div>Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom</div>
  • 31. <div>Thünen-Institute of Sea Fisheries, Hamburg, Germany</div>
  • 32. <div>Environmental Conservation and Management Programme, School of Pure, Latsia, Cyprus</div>
  • 33. <div>The Dead Sea-Arava Science Center, Neve Zohar, Israel</div>

Description

Cumulative human impacts have led to the degradation of marine ecosystems and the decline of biodiversity in the European and contiguous seas. Effective conservation measures are urgently needed to reverse these trends. Conservation must entail societal choices, underpinned by human values and worldviews that differ between the countries bordering these seas. Social, economic and political heterogeneity adds to the challenge of balancing conservation with sustainable use of the seas. Comprehensive macro-regional coordination is needed to ensure effective conservation of marine ecosystems and biodiversity of this region. Under the European Union Horizon 2020 framework programme, the MarCons COST action aims to promote collaborative research to support marine management, conservation planning and policy development. This will be achieved by developing novel methods and tools to close knowledge gaps and advance marine conservation science. This action will provide support for the development of macro-regional and national policies through six key actions: to develop tools to analyse cumulative human impacts; to identify critical scientific and technical gaps in conservation efforts; to improve the resilience of the marine environment to global change and biological invasions; to develop frameworks for integrated conservation planning across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments; to coordinate marine conservation policy across national boundaries; and to identify effective governance approaches for marine protected area management. Achieving the objectives of these actions will facilitate the integration of marine conservation policy into macro-regional maritime spatial planning agendas for the European and contiguous seas, thereby offsetting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in this region.

Files

RIO_article_11884.pdf

Files (596.7 kB)

Name Size Download all
md5:a457fe45ac667ed540b30e2b83035977
443.0 kB Preview Download
md5:347cd960b9452eb8f9ff2a37928037b5
153.7 kB Preview Download