Strengthen the Mediterranean Protected Areas Network (MedPAN)

Founded in 1990, the Mediterranean Protected Areas Network (MedPAN) is a tool for information, experience and skills sharing, capitalisation and discussion, available to all interested parties. However, a lack of human and financial resources resulted in the tool being parked as from 1996. It then became an “association” under French law in 2008 to ensure its status as a long-term institution.

The project – supported by the FFEM - aims to expand MedPAN's activities from 2012 onwards by enabling it to effectively meet the expectations of Mediterranean Marine Protected Area managers. The goal is therefore to provide them with the means to deliver real actions and facilitate dialogue to capitalise on participants’ experiences.

The project has 4 components:

• Develop the MedPAN Association by defining a body of strategic action specifying the long-term means of financing these initiatives, and its positioning alongside institutions, organisations and programmes active in the Mediterranean to assert its legitimacy.
• Launch an annual call for small projects in the Marine Protected Area, to offer direct support to project managers on topics they regard as priorities.
• Strengthen these managers’ capabilities through an annual regional workshop and training session.
• Develop a shared database for monitoring Marine Protected Areas, providing access to information on the location, scientific characteristics and management of the Marine Protected Areas.

• Nurture and harne managers’ expertise in the South and East Mediterranean.
• Implement an approach adapted to the Mediterranean’s diversity of learning and skills development cultures.
• Participate of national representatives at the Conference reviewing the condition of the Mediterranean’s Marine Protected Areas.
• Consolidate of local knowledge through skills transfer during training.
• Deepen of managers’ awareness and vigilance with respect to the visible effects of climate change.
• Distribute of engaging textbooks for use by the managers of Marine Protected Areas.

Supported by the FFEM, this initiative is novel in that it highlights subsidised small projects comprising innovative actions in financial management, conservation, communication, enhancement, coordination etc. in the pilot sites. These real experiences can be capitalised at the end of the call for projects, and the most exemplary and inventive aspects transferred to the other Marine Protected Area managers. In the same way, the training sessions will consider topics never previously addressed in the context of the Mediterranean basin and Marine Protected Areas: alternative revenue-generating activities, adapting to climate change, and socio-economic monitoring of the Marine Protected Areas.

The project also aims to establish a long-term governance network for actions in Marine Protected Areas throughout the Mediterranean, something unprecedented for an inland sea of this size.