This week I was in Split, in Croatia. It had been over a year since the last time I was here, for the Mediterranean Seagrass Workshop 2009. One of the most fun and interesting workshops I have ever been to!
Visiting Croatia is always exciting, Split is a beautiful city and it’s coastline pristine. I was invited to a workshop meant to develop management and monitoring plans for five Croatian Marine Protected Areas (Brijuni, Mlet, Telasçica, Kornati and Lastovo). The workshop involved about 30 participants: MPA managers, national institutions (Ministry of Culture, State Institute for Nature Protection, Sunce Association) and international experts from WWF Mediterranean, University of Perpignan, Fondazione IMC Onlus and the MPA of Tavolara, in Italy. I participated, together with a few other seagrass experts, to help establish a monitoring protocols for Posidonia oceanica meadows within these MPAs.
The MPAs range widely in size and extent of seagrass meadows, hence we worked MPA by MPA in establishing a similar monitoring design but with different spatial replication. The idea is to keep simple protocols that both the MPA staff and volunteers can easily implement. At the same time, it is crucial to gather data that later can be integrated to other monitoring database for the Mediterranean. This is particularly relevant as Croatia may enter the European Union in 2013 and will be required to implement the Water Framework Directive of the EU, which adopts Posidonia as a biological indicator for environmental quality.
Croatia is currently making large investments in MPAs to develop effective management and monitoring plans. The idea is that by this summer, monitoring will start both for fish and P. oceanica meadows and that later next year some socio-economic indicators will be added.
I think that the opportunity to exchange experiences among international MPAs, to discuss with colleagues lessons learned, to acquire information from experts is a valid approach to achieve effective management and conservation targets.
In the next few months, I will continue to work with the MPAs of Brijuni, Mlet, Telasçica, Kornati, and Lastovo and the National Croatian Organisation that give them support, to finalise protocols and to begin Posidonia monitoring in the five MPAs. I am much looking forward to getting to know new underwater areas of the Mediterranean!
Just a final thought: I agree with R.M. Brown who said “Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment”. I think this is the perfect quote for many MPAs in the Mediterranean.
Written by Ivan Guala, Fondazione IMC Onlus—International Marine Centre, Italy.
Photographs by Sunce and Ante Žuljević.
