MESMA: Methodology for assessing the management of marine areas

The seas around Europe are home to an exceptionally wide range of marine habitats which must also support a variety of marine industries. The challenge for marine spatial management is to find an optimal balance between the competing demands of economic use, ecological development, and nature conservation while at the same time maintaining sensitivity towards traditional practices. The EU FP7 project MESMA (www.mesma.org) focuses on marine spatial planning and aims to produce integrated management tools (concepts, models, and guidelines) for monitoring, evaluation and implementation of spatially managed marine areas, based on European collaboration. MESMA is currently developing innovative methods and integrated strategies for governments, local authorities, and other managerial bodies for planning and decision - making at different local, national, and European scales, for sustainable development of European seas. A generic framework to evaluate marine management strategies and to support the dialogue between politicians, stakeholders, and the public in general has been produced, and its application will be the tested within five European encompassing regions (i.e. the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Atlantic region, the Mediterranean region, and the Black Sea). This approach makes it possible to compare pressures and perspectives on an interregional level, and at a multipressure level for specific regions. MESMA aims to provide a firm basis for the design and implementation of European policies such as the Common Fisheries Policy and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.