A meeting in Nice brings together managers, institutions, and European projects to share best practices and multiply the impact of the Natura 2000 network in the Mediterranean.

France is the second country after the one in Malta to host the transferring sessions of the results of the LIFE A-MAR project, which is in its final stage. A two-day meeting has been organised in Nice (France) between the project partners and managers of marine protected areas in France and other marine projects operating in the Natura 2000 network.

The main goal is transferring project objectives, activities, and lessons learned to multiply the project’s impact and to promote other regions to replicate the successful actions, effective practices, and methodologies used by the project to improve knowledge and awareness of the marine Natura 2000 network.

For this reason, a second seminar has been organised in France to transmit the project results to managing bodies, with an international perspective and sharing the right techniques and strategies with which to communicate and raise awareness on the issues of existence, benefits and good behaviour from adopt within Natura 2000 marine sites.

Specifically, Triton, Fundación Biodiversidad and Federparchi has  shared the main actions and achievements of the project, including the results of communication and awareness-raising actions, such as the sailing campaigns carried out in Italy and Spain. The project application dedicated to the marine protected areas of the Natura 2000 network in the Mediterranean, AMAR SEA LIFE, was also presented, along with a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of using this dissemination tool to raise awareness about marine protected areas, thanks to the contributions of LIFE SEA.Net and LIFE DELFI, which introduced the SEA.Net and Marine Ranger apps. The French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) also presented the NAV&CO app, developed within the framework of LIFE MARHA, a French project similar to the Italian and Spanish LIFE A-MAR.

With these results transfer workshops the project seeks synergies and opportunities to carry out an exchange experiences workshop funded by LIFE A-MAR among managers of the Natura 2000 marine network or marine protected areas, ficusing on the project replication possibilities.  Upcoming seminars will take place in Greece and Albania and a first one was made in Malta.

The session concluded with a networking event held together with Life Conceptu Maris, “Meeting in Pelagos,” which saw increased participation in our training, involving many stakeholders, in addition to the managers of the marine protected areas, including: Métropole Nice Côte d’Azur, Accobams Secretariat, Port Cros National Park, Cap Martin MPA, University of Milano-Bicocca, Region Sud, Ecoocean Institut.