Off to new horizons: Blue Planning in Practice in Suriname

Written by Carolin Hoffmann (Blue Solutions Initiative) and Hanneke Van Lavieren (WWF Guianas)

The Crew! Copyright: WWF

WWF Guianas, within the context of the EU-project ‘Promoting Integrated and Participatory Ocean Governance in Guyana and Suriname: the Eastern Gate to the Caribbean’ the Blue Solutions Initiative and the MarViva Foundation have cooperated to convene a training course on Marine Spatial Planning in Suriname. From 22 to 26 October 2018, more than 20 representatives of different institutions and stakeholders involved in the planning process of coastal and ocean use participated in the course held in Paramaribo. The diverse group included policy makers, planners, government technicians, civil society, academics and the private sector.

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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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Marine Spatial Planning in Bakul – implemented in Equatorial Guinea

Written by Carolin Hoffmann, Blue Solutions Initiative

What do Equatorial Guinea and Bakul have in common? – Both are tropical coastal states that are blessed with an abundance of marine and coastal biodiversity, a diverse range of ecosystems and natural resources. In both countries, several sectors and stakeholders use the marine and coastal space and depend on the resources it provides, which raises questions on how the sustainable use of these resources can be guaranteed in the future.

Whereas this is the reality of Equatorial Guinea, Bakul is the fictitious venue and place of learning in the Marine Spatial Planning training course of Blue Solutions. From August 20-24, Bakul received a group of visitors from Equatorial Guinea that took part in the “Blue Planning in Practice” course. Here is what happened:

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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: Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture

Written by Volker Koch, Blue Solutions Initiative

The newest publication in our series “Solutions in Focus” has just been released! It gives an overview of the solutions related to “Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture” on our PANORAMA-Solutions for a healthy planet online platform. Continue reading →

New training on Conservation Finance

New blue training course on conservation finance

This 2 day training course introduces participants to opportunities and approaches for financing marine conservation, enabling factors for the development of conservation finance mechanism, and key steps for their establishment. 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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Our Marine & Coastal Portfolio in a Nutshell: An Analysis of the Blue Solutions on PANORAMA

Written by Volker Koch, Blue Solutions Initiative

A lot has happened since our PANORAMA – Solutions for a Healthy Planet platform went online in its current version in September 2016. The number of thematic communities has doubled (more are on the way!) and currently over 380 solutions are published. Over 170 blue solutions have been implemented in marine and coastal ecosystems. These successful examples for conservation and sustainable use of coastal and marine ecosystems come from a wide variety of geographical and cultural contexts and cover a diverse range of spatial scales, ecosystems and themes.
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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 →