Participants hailing from policy making entities in 15 different riparian countries within the Mediterranean and the Black Sea basins recently followed the PERSEUS Regional Stakeholder Training Course organised in Malta by the Physical Oceanography Research Group within the Department of Geosciences, University of Malta. The major aim of the course was to prompt participants about developing and sharing measures to achieve the good environmental status (GES) of marine and coastal ecosystems across the Southern European Seas (SES).
The course served to highlight the application of tools developed in PERSEUS as an aid in the formulation of evidence-based and adaptive policies for the optimal management of marine resources and for achieving long-term GES by 2020 according to regional and EU standards as detailed within the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The participants were cherry-picked from high level positions in national responsible entities, and having current duties for providing advice to their respective national administrations about marine-related policy undertakings. Locally the course served to empower participants from Transport Malta, MEPA, NGO’s and the Fisheries Department also followed the course
The training course was opened by the Hon. Leo Brincat, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development. A post mortem evaluation exercise conducted upon the completion of the training course revealed that the participants deemed the course to be of great benefit to enhance their capacities especially through the use of applications developed within the PERSEUS project in support to their policy-formulation needs, such as the AMP (Adaptive Management Policy) Toolbox.
More details about the PERSEUS project, which will close in December 2015, can be retrieved from the site.