Marine

European Maritime Day: Part Two – the SIMCelt project

May 19, 2016 by Marine Scotland Communications No Comments | Category Marine Directorate general, Marine Directorate Science

The 18th and 19th May celebrate European Maritime Day (EMD) – the annual meeting point for Europe’s maritime community to network, discuss, and agree joint action on work connected to the marine environment.

EMD 2016 has been organised in cooperation with the City of Turku and the Finnish government and focuses on the theme of “Investing in competitive blue growth – smart and sustainable solutions”.  More specifically it will focus on identifying and highlighting the practical steps needed to drive blue growth investments, as well as innovation and change in the blue economy.

In celebration of this, over the next two days we’re going to blog about two new projects that Marine Scotland has been involved with – the NorthSEE project and SIMCelt project.

Scotland’s National Marine Plan, published in March 2015, provides a single framework for sustainable management of Scotland’s seas. It has been designed to support the development of future regional marine plans and also ensures that the Scottish Government meets EU Regulations around planning, especially where sea boundaries are shared. For the first time, sea areas who are managed by different organisations – including Marine Scotland – will participate in two European Commission funded projects in the Celtic and North Sea. As partners on both projects, the Scottish Government will be sharing resources, joining up activities where possible and sharing lessons learned.

The SIMCelt Project

The Supporting Implementation of Maritime Spatial Planning in the Celtic Seas (SIMCelt) project has secured funding from the European Commission to run a Marine Spatial Planning project in the Celtic Seas.

Over the next two years in Scotland, the project will support regional marine planning by testing new stakeholder engagement tools in the Clyde Marine Region and it will explore the challenges of cross-border spatial planning in the Solway Marine Region. The project brings together a number of partners – research organisations, marine planning authorities and marine management bodies – who have extensive experience with regard to marine planning, policy and management.

SIMCelt Partners:

• University College Cork – National University of Ireland (Lead Partner)
• Scottish Government
• Service Hydrographique et Océanographique de la Marine (France)
• The University of Liverpool (UK)
• Agence des Aires Marines Protégées (France)
• Marine Institute (Ireland)
• Department of the Environment (Northern Ireland)

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Written by

Andronikos Kafas  and Lynsay Ross, Marine Scotland.

Further Information

• European Maritime Day (EMD)
• Scotland’s National Marine Plan

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