LIFE Platform meeting

LIFE Platform meeting: outlined new approaches to the coastal wetlands’ conservation

On 12 and 13 October 2022, the Lagoon of Life project hosted hybrid LIFE platform meeting on Innovative Approaches in Coastal Wetlands Management at the International Congress Centre in Burgas, Bulgaria. The meeting was dedicated to the 30^th anniversary of the LIFE Programme.

Ten LIFE projects and five other European projects from Italy, Spain, Greece, Montenegro, and Bulgaria presented cross-sectoral cooperation and involvement of stakeholders, integrated management and restoration techniques, and nature-based solutions as a relatively new tool of the socio-economic aspect of coastal wetlands. There was a focus on the use of wetlands as an indicator of climate change and the restoration of seagrass beds as a tool for protecting coastal habitats in Italy, Spain and Greece. The carbon storage potential of coastal wetlands and methods for its calculation has been presented as an important element of the increasingly popular carbon economy.

In a poster session seven posters from France, Bulgaria and the USA presented case studies from two Life projects in salt-pans in Normandy and Atanasovsko lake such as: the people of the marshes, competition between Greater Flamingos and local waterbirds, transplantation of the seagrass and convivial spatial organization for coastal wetlands.

In a field visit the participants saw the "last Mohicans" who collect salt by hand in Atanasovsko lake, the restoration of the three earthen dykes, which will improve the water circulation and will provide new nesting opportunities for birds, cleaning of internal channels as a tool to reduce the effects of fragmentation and eutrophication. All these activities are implementing in the frame of Lagoon of Life project (LIFE17 NAT/BG/000558) by the various partners the NGOs – Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation and Bulgarian Society for the protection of Birds/BirdLife Bulgaria, as well as the business company The Black Sea Salinas Ltd.

INNOVATIVE APPROACHES IN THE COASTAL WETLANDS MANAGEMENT

This LIFE platform meeting will address integrated and innovative approaches to coastal wetlands, birds and habitats conservation. Sharing the successful management models and strategies will allow not only focus on the strict replication aspects but will also target related aspects like scaling-up, demonstration and mainstreaming. Following the main objective of the Biodiversity strategy to 2030 to restore degraded ecosystems, in particular those with the most potential to capture and store carbon, prevent and reduce the impact of natural disasters, relevant experience will be presented and discussed.

The coastal wetlands play an important role in the regional economy, however increasing human pressure could limit the economic and ecological services provided by these ecosystems. That is why managing human interventions in a way that enables them to safeguard their existence but could also cause their disappearance from the coastal landscape.

LIFE projects are invited to participate in the meeting which will address the following issues:

• Better understanding of the role of monitoring and action on monitoring information – Need to link this to better data collection, analysis and reporting and use of the new technologies in monitoring and data gathering;
• Developing climate change adaptation techniques and expanding lessons learned that reduce the risk associated with climate change: watershed management and integrated flood risk management); rainfall variability and drought risks;
• Demonstration of environmental benefits and socio-economic value of coastal wetlands;
• Good practices in policy and sectoral coordination, including financing of coastal wetlands management;
• Enhancing cross-sectoral cooperation through implementing demonstrations projects related to integrated water management;
• Fostering pro-biodiversity business ventures to improve lagoon ecosystem and sustainable livelihoods.

During the Platform meeting special attention will be paid to identifying not only the output and outcome-based lessons, but specifically the process based ones (e.g. the novel approaches), as well as the problem based (e.g negative learnings to avoid a repeat).

The objective of the meeting is to gather European best practices from coastal areas for their sustainable management and to be a key event at the Black Sea in the frame of the #LIFEis30 campaign.

The LIFE Platform Meeting will be held on October 12-13, in the International Congress Center of Burgas, Bulgaria.

You can register here: https://forms.gle/EYGWNkEQ8nBpTsaQ9

The programme will include a plenary session (one and a half working days) and a field visit (half-day). The meeting will be a hybrid event – a "live" in-person event in Burgas with a "virtual" online component. It will also provide opportunities for networking and sharing experiences. A special publication will be developed with the abstract from the presentations of the participants. All outcomes from the platform meeting will be made available online.

The event is kindly hosted by the Lagoon of LIFE project/ LIFE17 NAT/BG/000558 that is focused on maintaining the Man-Lake Symbiosis for the benefit of species and habitats of EU conservation concern. It is taking actions for full-scale restoration of the ecological processes, establishing a self-sustaining and financially viable mechanism to allow for the long-term conservation management of the lagoon and promoting the benefits generated by the Natura 2000 site Atanasovsko Lake.

For more information: Diyana Kostovska, BBF, Project manager of the Lagoon of Life project // Dr Petar Iankov, BSPB/BirdLife Bulgaria, Ornithologist of Lagoon of Life project