The UNEP/MAP Coordinator Tatjana Hema took part in the “2020 Forum on Marine Protected Areas in the Mediterranean” (28-29 November 2021, Oceanographic Museum of Monaco). SPA/RAC, the Tunis-based UNEP/MAP Regional Activity Centre specializing in conservation and biodiversity, is one of the four institutions that organised the forum. The quartet includes WWF, MED PAN and Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation.
The Forum’s objective is to bring a variety of stakeholders together to share experiences and identify solutions to the challenges encountered in the crucial field of marine biodiversity conservation in the Mediterranean. One of the main outcomes of the Forum is the Post-2020 MPA Roadmap, which will help achieve conservation goals under the CBD and the Barcelona Convention by 2030.
Ms. Hema attended the sessions held on 28-29 November, and addressed the opening ceremony held in the presence of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco, Khalil Attia, Director of SPA/RAC, Catherine Piante of WWF-France, Purificacio Canals, President of MedPAN-network, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema Executive Secretary of the CBD (video message), and Hedi Chebili on behalf of H.E. Leila Chikhaoui, Minister of Environment Tunisia.
| Statement of Ms. Tatjana Hema at the opening ceremony Monaco, 28 November 2021 |
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| Since its first edition in 2012, the forum on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Mediterranean has played an important triggering and advocacy role in gathering, every four years, the MPA community, from the Mediterranean and beyond, to exchange and propose recommendations and actions to set an ambitious and progressive agenda and move forward with the marine conservation in the Mediterranean with a view to enabling the region to adhere to and comply with the international commitments—mainly the CBD marine conservation targets and the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention, which delivered in 1982 the first Regional Protocol on Specially Protected Areas (SPA). |  |
| In the context of the significant transformation of the MAP system in 1995, the SPA Protocol was upgraded to the Protocol on SPA and Biodiversity. Please allow me to take this opportunity to thank Monaco once again for the leadership role that it played then for the further development and adoption of the SPA and Biodiversity Protocol. Since then, it has been a long journey we have embarked on together with the Contracting Parties, our partners, and the MPA and Science communities. We aim to continue with the same determination to implement our commitments. While we have achieved a lot and we must be proud of what we have accomplished, we remain fully aware of challenges, difficulties and gaps that we need to overcome together. At the UNEP/MAP Barcelona Convention system we are aware that we need to work more on enhancing and expanding the protection status form a substantive and geographical point of view. This includes enhancing the geographical balance of MPAs across different sub-basins of the Mediterranean, improving ecological coherence and representativity, addressing all ecosystems at open and deep sea, maximizing sustainable funding for MPAs – while building on the encouraging progress achieved thanks to the work of our partners—, and building and upgrading capacity with all relevant stakeholders to develop and implement effectively smart MPA management plans. Your forum being dynamic, a wide partnership and collegial process will be contributing to express needs and showcase concrete results and solution. It will also help better identify the role of each actor and its scope of action in order to achieve the agreed conservation objectives. Before concluding my intervention, I would like to reassure you that the MPA community has in the UNEP/MAP Barcelona Convention system, including SPA/RAC, our Regional Activity Centre leading on SPA and biodiversity, a strong ally that will support your work, dedication and commitment. I would like also to thank you very much for your contribution during the preparation and negotiation process of two major decisions related to MPAs that will be examined for adoption at the forthcoming 22nd Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols (COP 22): the SAP-BIO 2023-2035 and the ambitious and transformational “Post-2020 Regional Strategy for Marine and Coastal Protected Areas (MCPAs) and Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) in the Mediterranean”. These two crucial milestones, once adopted by the Contracting Parties in Antalya, Turkey, are expected to open new perspectives for the Contracting Parties, but also for the MPA Community that, without leaving any one behind or aside, would deliver together to make our beautiful Mediterranean Sae a successful story that demonstrates the added value of MPAs for conservation of marine and coastal biodiversity in the context of sustainable development. Thank you again for your energy, passion, concrete results and for the inspiration that your work gives to all us. |
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