Category Archives: General

Blue Solutions side event at COP25 in Madrid

Blue Solutions side event at COP25 in Madrid

On the 6^th of December, during the UN Climate Change Conference COP 25 (2 – 13 December 2019) in Madrid, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) organized a side event on marine nature-based solutions for NDCs. Blue Solutions (GIZ, IUCN, GRID, and UNEP) as well as Rare, the Blue Action Fund and the Save Our Mangroves Now! Initiative (WWF and IUCN) co-organized this event.

Take-away messages

While the political process is still debating the outcome document of this year’s COP, many stakeholders are in full action mode. Coastal and marine NbS are a viable option climate response, with various benefits to nature and people.
The event highlighted the need for integrated planning and implementation approaches. The necessity to tackle issues such as climate change, biodiversity and resilience in a holistic manner was emphasized. Practical examples as those presented by Vanuatu, Kenya, Indonesia and Tanzania, showed the complexity, yet also the possible ways forward on how to set up proper partnerships, truly engage the local community and policy reforms to generate positive impact on the ground.

Blue Solutions, as one of the co-organizers, provided a platform for government representatives and development partners to come together and explore nature-based solutions for coastal communities. Practitioners discussed how to implement and up-scale solutions which contribute to NDCs and climate adaptation and mitigation. The side event highlighted success stories of tangible and workable solutions, inspiring local and international partners to take the lead on climate action.

The Side Event was moderated by Dorothée Herr (Blue Solutions Team member from IUCN). Vanuatu’s Ms. Pauliane Basil, CC Adaptation and DRM Officer, Ministry of Climate Change, presented a Blue Solution on Coral Gardening as an example of marine NbS in the context of climate change.

German Ministry of Environment invests two million Euros in the PANORAMA Initiative

German Ministry of Environment invests two million Euros in the PANORAMA Initiative

The new funding from Germany’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) will strengthen the PANORAMA – Solutions for a Healthy Planet initiative, a global learning and knowledge partnership, aiming to support the promotion and uptake of existing replicable solutions. Through investment in core functions, including partnership coordination and business development, the programme will better enable PANORAMA to support global learning from successful practices in biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation and mitigation among practitioners and decision-makers.

The funding will significantly support the PANORAMA secretariat, which is currently hosted by GIZ and IUCN, for the coming four years. The new flow of income will strengthen the long-term sustainability and strategic advancement of the initiative. PANORAMA is promoting solutions that demonstrate how well protected biodiversity and well managed ecosystems help address societal challenges, increase resilience and adaptation to climate change and thereby achieve development benefits.

A strong focus will be on improved impact monitoring with the intention of having a better understanding of existing solutions and best practices. A more in-depth analysis of solutions will help to crystallize further building blocks and key trends, which will result in better communication of lessons learnt. Enhanced political processes and advocacy activities will make the PANORAMA initiative and its diverse set of solutions more visible to potential stakeholders and decision-makers.

The increased visibility of PANORAMA will prospectively attract co-funding from other donors who can simultaneously benefit from its broad collective of solutions and expertise. Ultimately, the funding of the German ministry will facilitate an improved interaction between solution providers and users promoting the 550+ solutions on a bigger scale and contribute to the long-lasting sustainability of the PANORAMA platform.

Blue Solutions coordinates the Marine and Coastal Portal of the PANORAMA platform and promotes currently more than 220 solutions to address challenges in the coastal and marine realm.

Congratulations to PANORAMA and its partners on this new support!

Solutions in Focus: Community-led successes in marine conservation

Written by Marie Fischborn, IUCN, Blue Solutions initiative

Coastal communities have a key role to play in ensuring the conservation of fish stocks and other marine resources, while relying on their sustainable use. Around the world, a vast variety of area-based conservation with strong community engagement exists. Examples are locally-managed marine areas (LMMAs), shared MPA governance and many other setups.

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‘Powerful, participative and complex’: Participants share their Feedback on the Blue Planning in Practice Training Course

Written by Tabitha Stimpfle and Carolin Hoffmann, Blue Solutions Initiative

The Blue Solutions initiative has developed four modular and highly interactive marine training courses (referred to as Blue Training Courses) which have been implemented in over a dozen countries and world regions in the past four years. All Blue Training Courses are designed for practitioners, technical staff and decision makers responsible for coastal and marine planning and management from different social sectors, such as government, civil society, and aca-demia. Especially the demand for support of marine spatial planning initiatives remains high at the international level, which is why the so-called “Blue Planning in Practice” (BPiP) training course has been inquired and conducted most frequently so far.

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Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning for Sustainable Fisheries Management in the Northern Gulf of California, Mexico

Written by Peggy Turk-Boyer, Hem Nalini Morzaria-Luna, Tonatiuh Carrillo-Lammens & Volker Koch

Figure 1: Map of the Northern Gulf of California, delimiting the coastal corridor Puerto Peñasco-Punta Lobos and different types of protected areas in the region.

Introduction

The Blue Solutions Initiative has supported the NGO CEDO (Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans) from 2015-2018 to develop a plan for integrated management of small-scale fisheries in a coastal corridor with six fishing communities in the Northern Gulf of California in Mexico, using the framework of coastal marine spatial planning (Figure 1). The project addresses the need to reduce growing conflicts surrounding the use of this unique ecosystem, by clarifying user rights and achieving a viable and sustainable system for fisheries and ecosystem management. Continue reading →

Solutions in Focus: Blue sustainable finance

Written by Janina Korting, Blue Solutions Initiative

A new publication of PANORAMA solutions with case studies of financing sustainable marine and coastal management is now published.
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The art of convening Blue Training Courses

Written by Tabitha Stimpfle and Carolin Hoffmann, Blue Solutions Initiative

After five eventful years, the Blue Solutions project is in its final year of implementation and will come to an end in late 2018. To ensure the long-term availability, implementation and adaptation of the Blue Training Courses*, a workshop dedicated to “The art of convening Blue Training Courses” was conducted in June 2018. The workshop was jointly organized by the Blue Solutions Initiative, the Mami Wata Project, the MARISMA Project and convened in collaboration with the Sustainable Ocean Initiative (SOI) of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Continue reading →

Be a volunteer in Vanuatu!

You are a passionate marine and coastal conservationist? You want to engage as a volunteer?
The Nguna-Pele Marine and Land Protected Area Network in Vanuatu is looking for you! Take the chance and contribute to the roll-out of an innovative conservation finance program. You will have the opportunity to work with and learn from experts in the field of payments for ecosystem services and eco-tourism.
Minimum stay: 3 months.
Are you interested? Please contact Tasaruru Whitely (jelowislandtours@gmail.com) or Christopher Bartlett (christopher.bartlett@giz.de) for more information.

Moving from pilots to mainstreaming: Blue Solutions at the 3rd EbA Knowledge Day

Written by Tabitha Stimpfle, Blue Solutions Initiative

On May 7^th, 2018, the 3^rd EbA Knowledge Day, organized by GIZ and IUCN under the Friends of EbA (FEBA) network in the framework of UNFCCC SBSTA 48, took place in the GIZ headquarter in Bonn. Approximately 60 persons participated, including UN negotiators, policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and donors working on issues relevant to climate change adaptation, ecosystem management and human resilience.

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Blue Planning in Practice in the Mekong Delta

Written by Silke Bommersheim, ICMP (GIZ Vietnam) and Carolin Hoffmann, Blue Solutions

A training on “Blue Planning in Practice” took place in the Mekong Delta from April 11-13, 2018. More than 20 representatives from all 7 coastal provinces of the Mekong Delta as well as representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE) and related institutes strengthened their skill set on coastal and marine spatial planning for practitioners. The 3-day training course started with a high-level event on April 10 and took participants to the fictitious coastal country “Bakul”.

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