Regional Stakeholder Group Meets
Thursday 22nd April saw the first meeting of the Regional Stakeholder Group. The meeting was attended by 29 members of the group (the few members who were unable to attend will be briefed by the project team). The objectives of this first meeting were to:
- Develop a common understanding of the objectives, challenges, working process and expected outputs from the Balanced Seas project
- Become familiar with the types of information that will be in the Regional Profile (e.g. data layers, charts and maps) and provide comments
- Comment on and adopt Terms of Reference for the group
- Get a clear idea of the way forward
The meeting started with presentations by the project team to update participants on project progress and to introduce the concept of ‘conservation planning’. This was followed by a session in which participants divided into small groups to discuss “challenges and opportunities”. In the afternoon, participants undertook a short exercise to gain a direct understand of conservation planning, using laminated maps of the project area to discuss areas of biological and economic interest. This was an exercise only, to demonstrate the aspects of the process that will be used in the coming year by the group to identify potential Marine Conservation Zones. The draft Terms of Reference for the group were subsequently reviewed; these will be revised and approved at the next meeting. The meeting report will available in 10 days time and will be posted on the website.