The closing meeting of the Project "Strategizing Türkiye's Marine Environment" was held online on November 26, 2021.
The closing meeting of the Project “Strategizing Türkiye’s Marine Environment", which started on 29 June 2018 with a protocol signed by and between the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change General Directorate of Environmental Management and TÜBİTAK MAM Environment and Cleaner Production Institute, was held online on 26 November 2021.
The meeting was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, TÜBİTAK MAM Environment and Cleaner Production Institute, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and other relevant ministries, Coast Guard Command, Department of Navigation, Hydrography and Oceanography and universities.
The project aims to form a “Strategy and Action Plan to Protect Türkiye’s Marine Environment”, as a part of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, European Union (EU) requirements and Regional Marine Conventions, in order to ensure the management of sea and coastal waters with an ecosystem-based approach.
The Project covers all Turkish seas, namely the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea. The main objective of the Marine Environment Strategy (MES) Project is to create the necessary technical/administrative/institutional/legal infrastructure for the implementation of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) in Türkiye. The MES Project, which aims to get practical outputs for the sustainable management of Türkiye's waters, includes the all 11 descriptors defined in the MSFD, which constitutes the general conceptual framework of the project.
As a result of the creation of technical, legal, administrative and institutional outputs; a significant step has been taken in the implementation of the MSFD in Türkiye and in the sustainable management of seas. The project allowed the determination of targets, measures and indicators required to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) for all Turkish seas, and the creation of a “Program of Measures” in the short, medium and long term. This program included a cost-benefit analysis on the new measures proposed, and a research on the extent of the contributions by the proposed program and the existing measures to the achievement of environmental goals. On the other hand, the measures in the program were prioritized on the basis of sectors.
Also, the project benefited effectively from the engagement of stakeholders. As the activities planned within the scope of the project, many workshops were held in which working groups consisting of academicians, representatives of public institutions, local administrations and non-governmental organizations actively participated; for example the two-stage workshops on "Good Environmental Status (GES) and Monitoring Program”, "Program of Measures”, “Socio-economic Analysis of Turkish Seas and a Pilot Area” and "Legal Workshops".
In this context, the project has 2 important outputs;
- “Strategy Paper and Action Plan to Protect National Marine Environment”
- “Marine Environment Status Reports” in formats required by the EU and Regional Marine Conventions, based on the past five years of work on the management of the marine environment, separately for each of Turkish seas.
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