Meeting of OSPAR's group on Marine Protected Areas

The annual meeting of OSPAR’s Intersessional Correspondence Group on Marine Protected Areas took place online from 20-22 October 2020.

Janos Hennicke (Germany) as the new convenor of the group, invited the group to consider ongoing global and regional developments as a basis for defining relevant work for ICG-MPA in the future. Climate change and the projected expansion of offshore windfarms were identified as new topics which impacts MPA work that should be considered in the future.

Technical discussions on how to include Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECM) in the OSPAR MPA 2021 data call resulted in drafted considerations to be included as support to Contracting Parties. The aim would be to include OECMs in the ecocoherence assessment of the MPA network for the 2021 MPA status report which would be a contribution to the QSR 2023.

Contracting Parties continued the tradition of sharing updates and information on implementation on national fisheries management measures in MPAs. The round-table exchange was found to be useful, and it was agreed to expand this round-table exchange to also cover other measures in coming years.