The 2012 Forum of Marine Protected Areas in the Mediterranean. Antalya (Turkey) 25-28 November 2012
In the Mediterranean Sea there are 122 Specially Protected Areas (SPA) sites under the UNEP Protocol (UUNEP-RAC/SPA, 1997b), 47 of which cover marine areas. The countries bordering the Mediterranean through the Barcelona Convention and its Protocol on Specially Protected Areas and Biological Diversity in the Mediterranean, are committed to contribute to the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity. One of the objectives is to establish, by 2020, well-managed and ecologically representative national and regional systems of marine protected areas (MPAs), covering at least 10% of the oceans.
The International Forum on Marine Protected Areas, organized by the Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas (RAC-SPA) will serve as a platform to examine the progress of the MPAs network developed over the last years and define a common roadmap for 2020, in order to meet the challenges of conservation of marine biodiversity in the region. Some of the main topics of the sessions are: the identification and the creation of new MPAs in the Mediterranean and the challenges for Open Seas which represent one of the major marine habitat types in the Mediterranean.