Members of the MPA Europe team were very pleased to participate online in the opening of the workshop “Strengthening ecosystem-based approach in MSP and supporting sustainable blue economy” of eMSP project, a joint action of eMSP-NBSR and MSP4BIO in Helsinki.

It was fascinating to hear from a range of regional actors including representatives from OSPAR and HELCOM, who discussed their forthcoming work and ambitions to improve spatial coverage and coherence in networks of regional marine protected areas and to improve management of existing protected areas for the Baltic Sea and North East Atlantic ocean. Anna Addamo, Thanos Smanis and Belinda Bramley joined the session on MSP for coherent MPAs and other spatial conservation measures where Belinda Bramley briefly introduced MPA Europe’s goals and activities, including stakeholder engagement.

We look forward for future productive conversations and collaborations with our sister projects to help the MSP community and regional stakeholders access regional, standardised data on species and habitat distributions, blue carbon stores and oceanographic and climate connectivity, supporting them with the science evidence base to designate new and enhance existing marine protected areas in European seas.

Thank you to organisers from MSP4BIO and eMSP NBSR for kindly inviting us to participate.