Mediterrenean Trends: Uses and resources of the sea around us

MedTrends is an EU project funded by Programme Med 2007-2013 (transnational cooperation) and the European Regional Development Fund. The one-year project carried out by a consortium of WWF offices, led by WWF-France started in June 2014 and aims at illustrating and mapping the most likely integrated scenarios of marine economic growth at a transnational level in the Med-EU countries for the next 20 years, in order to highlight potentially conflicting uses that may hinder the achievement of Good Environmental Status (GES) according to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
The project partners (WWF-France, WWF-Spain, WWF-Mediterranean, WWF-Italy, WWF-Greece and Nature Trust Malta) is gathering available data in the European waters of the Mediterranean Sea and is developing national reports and GIS maps of the current status and future trends of the main economic sectors in the project area. Analysis of the results are being made to draw conclusions on the potentially conflicting uses and main criticalities identified in the process.
A national analysis made by Nature Trust Malta is focusing on the Maltese territorial waters up to 15 nautical miles around Malta and the projects’ outcomes will serve the European and Mediterranean policy process and the proposed MSP Directive.
MedTrends aims at appointing national Advisory Committees that are composed by a selected number of key stakeholders from the respective countries, that are engaged in Maritime and Coastal Spatial Planning and Management, Coastal research and governance.

If you are interested to investigate and discuss the uses and resources of the Mediterenean and want to discuss it in class please contact Ms Marvic Refalo on [email protected] for further information.