This event, attended by the project's principal investigator and director of the institute, Ricardo Haroun, as well as several researchers from the BIOCON group, took place in Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria on 20 and 22 January, respectively, with the participation of representatives from various sectors of society related to the marine and coastal environment.
The ECOAQUA Institute of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), through the Biodiversity and Conservation (BIOCON) group, and with the support and management of the Science and Technology Park Foundation (FPCT), has concluded the third round of consultations for the European Marine SABRES project in the Canary Islands with the holding of a workshop to test decision-making support tools, first at the Cabildo de Fuerteventura's Insular Youth Centre and then at the ULPGC's Marine Science and Technology Park (Taliarte, Gran Canaria).
Both sessions were attended and participated in by people linked to different sectors related to the marine and coastal environment, such as tourism, research, public administration and the environment. In this way, the tools developed within the framework of the project, related to aspects such as socio-ecological systems and governance, were tested from different fields of knowledge and experience.
Group photo with participants in the third round of consultations for the European Marine SABRES project held in Gran Canaria.
The valuable contributions and suggestions received at this workshop, which was attended by ECOAQUA director Ricardo Haroun, principal investigator (PI) of the project, and BIOCON researchers such as Jesús Padrón and Candelaria Cecilia Ruano, among others, will enable the development, improvement and updating of these tools to continue. For this reason, the ECOAQUA team would like to express its ‘enormous’ gratitude for their participation, which they consider to be ‘key’ to reinforcing the usefulness and accessibility of these tools for society.
Sustainable management
These meetings were aimed at agents involved in the management of the marine and coastal environment, including productive sectors such as fishing and tourism, NGDOs, social entities and research, among others. The aim of these workshops was to present and test decision-making support tools, developed on the basis of previous contributions, in order to move towards sustainable management of the coastal and marine environment in the Canary Islands and Macaronesia.
The director of ECOAQUA and IP of the project in the Canary Islands, Ricardo Haroun, during the workshop at the Marine Science and Technology Park of the ULPGC.
These events continue the iterative process being carried out with key agents identified in the different demonstration areas of the project: Macaronesia, the Tuscan Archipelago and the North-East Arctic.
The first round of consultations took place in Gran Canaria in July 2023, with significant participation. The workshops linked to the second round were held in Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria on 13 and 15 January 2025, respectively, with the participation of more than 30 representatives from various sectors of society linked to conservation, management and the development of activities in the marine environment.
These three days of consultations were carried out in line with Marine SABRES' objectives of reversing biodiversity loss, strengthening the conservation of coastal and marine areas, and balancing human and ecosystem needs.
Revitalisation
The HuFoSS Foundation, a partner organisation in the Netherlands that leads the participatory processes and interaction with local agents of Marine SABRES, was responsible for coordinating and organising this event within the framework of the project. This organisation highlights the importance of participatory digital tools for integrating the views of local communities into European sustainability policies, which will facilitate informed decision-making and promote a harmonious relationship between economic development and environmental conservation.
One of the moments of the workshop held in Gran Canaria.
Marine SABRES is a project funded through the Horizon Europe Programme whose main objective is to balance marine conservation with sustainable socio-economic activities through the generation of decision-making support tools.
Another moment during this workshop, which was part of the third round of Marine SABRES consultations.
In addition to ECOAQUA, the project has the following partners from different European countries: MARE (Centre for Marine and Environmental Sciences) at the University of Lisbon (Portugal); MAREI at University College Cork, Ireland; ARDITI (Regional Agency for Research, Technology and Innovation Development) in Madeira (Portugal); the Department of Innovation Engineering at the University of Salento (Italy); the University of Pisa (Italy); DTU (Technical University of Denmark, Denmark), AQUARIUS-RI, European Union; Blue Resource / Sjókovin, Faroe Islands; Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS), Potsdam (Germany); and Hafrannsóknastofnun (Marine & Freshwater Research Institute), Iceland.