More than 100 people, including representatives of international public administrations for marine spatial planning, academia and the maritime sector, are participating from Sunday until tomorrow in the International Forum for Maritime Spatial Planning (MSPforum), a conference organised in Vigo by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO). The aim of this event is to exchange ideas and good practices to conserve the ocean and use its resources sustainably. It aims to create a space for dialogue and mutual understanding on marine spatial planning and is based on the sharing of experiences between participants from all over the world. In this third edition of the international forum, the 100 participating professionals are also getting closer to the environment to learn about experiences in this field first-hand, with visits to institutions, fishing companies, shipyards, the port and even catering and tourism companies.
Thus, the expert committees of the University and Biotechnology committees showed their interest in learning about the work carried out by the University of Vigo, specifically the Campus do Mar, in the field of marine planning and wanted to approach both the campus and the Toralla Marine Science Station, as they identified several projects that are being carried out at the academic institution and are of interest to the MSP.
In search of new strategies for marine spatial planning
The Vigo edition of the International Forum for Maritime Spatial Planning is the third to be held in search of new debates, ideas and experiences that help develop new international guidelines in maritime spatial planning, a public process of analysis and allocation of the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic and social objectives that have been specified through a political process.
As part of today’s event, representatives of the University working group, from countries such as Portugal, Sweden, Ghana, South Korea and Namibia, visited the campus, where they were received by the director of the University’s Marine Research Center, Daniel Rey. Throughout the morning, they also held meetings with Elena Ojea, from the Future Oceans Lab, Raquel Fernández, from the Erenea group and Pol Fontanet, from the MarRisk project. They later traveled to Citexvi to learn about the work of Gradiant, Imatia and Nanoimmunotech as examples of the university-business transfer model.
Meanwhile, members of the Biotechnology committee from Bulgaria, Vietnam, Spain, Algeria, Reunion and Italy traveled to the Ecimat, where they took a guided tour led by its director José Manuel García and researcher Alba Hernández and met with scientists from the Marine Research Center who presented them with some of the projects underway, such as Sunset Piers and with research groups such as Ecocost or the European Blue Biobank.
Source DUVI
