Проект “Towards COast to COast NETworks of Marine Protected Areas (the Mediterranean and the Black Sea)”
Marine scientists from 22 countries over 3 continents (Africa, Asia and Europe) will meet in Odessa (Ukraine) next 29th and 30th July to discuss on the future strategies for the protection of the marine environment. The opportunity will be the 2nd Joint Pilot Projects Meeting of the EC 7FP project “CoCoNet”, where the scientific hypothesis aiming at creating a network of Marine Protected Areas and evaluating the feasibility to develop clean energy sources such as Offshore Wind Farms will be tested.
Organised in cooperation with the Italian Embassy and the Italian Institute of Culture in Ukraine, the meeting, held in the Odessa State Environmental University, will gather researchers from different scientific branches whose objective is the creation of common guidelines for the identification and the management of MPAs networks in the Mediterranean and the Black Seas and to carry out feasibility studies on the OWF in both seas.
Environmental protection and sustainable exploitation of natural resources are the keywords of this scientific community that gathers 50 researchers from 39 institutes. They will have the opportunity to develop, through science, an overall view for the protection of the natural environment, who knows no borders or private interests. Once more the environmental sciences unite people. The Odessa meeting is a step further in this direction.
Coordinated by the Institute of Marine Sciences of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-ISMAR), under the scientific lead of Prof. Ferdinando Boero (University of Salento-CoNISMa, and associated to CNR-ISMAR), the CoCoNet project promotes the relationship among the scientific communities of the involved countries, strengthens the exchange of ideas, expertise and know-how that will promote the protection of our seas.