EU countries are largely failing to protect their marine areas in the bloc’s most remote regions, with national strategies often misaligned with the European Green Deal goals, a WWF report said on Tuesday.
WWF assessed national maritime spatial plans (MSP), which regulate human-led activities in European waters, in four EU sea basins and outermost regions.
The EU has nine outermost regions: Portugal’s Madeira and Azores, Spain’s Canary Islands, and France’s Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Reunion, Martinique, Mayotte, and Saint Martin.
The EU’s plans are regarded as key to ensure that sectors such as fishing, aquaculture, shipping, and renewable energy do not damage the marine environment, but often lack coherence and coordination, or have not been implemented yet, researchers said in a report.
“The need for coherent and coordinated processes to sustainably manage the farthest reaches of EU territories is more essential than ever,” said Helena Rodrigues, ocean policy officer at WWF and lead author of the report.
“This hinges on overcoming a lack of human and financial resources, limited public awareness of the importance of planning our sea spaces, and, crucially, insufficient interest in meaningful stakeholder engagement and cross-border cooperation.”
Under the EU Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (MSPD), member states are required to create transparent planning-at-sea systems in coordination with neighbouring countries, to promote the sustainable use of marine resources.
Governments had to present their maritime spatial plans to the EU Commission by March 2021. Yet, Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Cyprus have no plans in place, while Portugal took a phased approach, prioritising some areas at the expense of others.
“This has resulted in delayed implementation of the MSPD in the Azores and the start of an infringement procedure by the EU Commission against Portugal. Currently, the draft plan for the Azores is under public consultation and is expected to be finalised in 2024,” the report said.
CLIMATE RISKS
“Where plans do exist – in the cases of the Canary Islands, Madeira, and the French outermost regions – engagement with local stakeholders has been inadequate to ensure plans are robustly developed and publicly supported.”
“Strategies to increase marine protection remain insufficient to secure nature recovery, and the calibre of long-term planning of offshore renewable energy all put the sustainable blue economies of these nations at risk,” the report said.
WWF called on the EU and its member states to prioritise MSP for all the bloc’s waters, including the French outermost regions where the MSPD does not apply, as well as bolster transboundary cooperation with non-EU countries to strengthen the role of such plans in the Global South.
“Implementing MSP in the outermost regions represents a critical opportunity for the EU – with the largest maritime territory in the world – to lead good ocean governance by example, through cooperation across sea basins and collaboration with neighbouring countries.”
In January, the European Environment Agency warned against the climate risks threatening EU’s outermost regions, and called for urgent action to help them address tropical cyclones, sea level rise, marine heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires.
Last year, the BESTLIFE2030 initiative, from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and co-funded by the EU, launched with the aim of financing projects aimed at conserving biodiversity in the bloc’s outermost regions and overseas countries and territories.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
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