The Sun&Blue congress took place last 20, 21 and 22 November in Almeria (Spain) and focused on strategies for sustainable tourism and seabed conservation by bringing together industry professionals, policymakers, and the scientific community.
- The context
In the frame of the CPMR IMC Task Force on “Sustainable Cultural & Maritime Tourism” for the tourism of the future, the BLUE ECOSYSTEM project was presented to Mediterranean Regional tourism and environment departments, sectoral agencies, international organisations and observers. It addressed current tourism challenges such as overtourism, tensions with local communities, biodiversity protection and nature conservation, the impact of climate change on Mediterranean tourist destinations, and innovative blue economy methodologies.
After the welcome address from José Francisco Benítez (Turismo Andaluz, representing the hosting region of Junta de Andalucía ), the main updates on sustainable tourism across the Mediterranean region by George Alexakis (Crete), and the background and outline of the meeting by Flora Leroy, (CPMR-IMC) debates focused on better understating Nature-based Solutions (NbS) (Emmi Lindqvist, IUCN Med) and the opportunities from the EU Nature Restoration Law to boost ecotourism, with an example from Sardinia Region (Emanuela Manca).
Other initiatives were also presented, such as the CPMR-IMC Declaration on Climate Adaptation (María Cruz Ferreira-Costa, Murcia), the Blueprint for Tourism Climate Action Plans (Alicia Fajardo, The Travel Foundation) and the Handbook “Unpacking the potential of ICZM & maritime spatial planning processes for sustainable tourism in the Mediterranean” (Samson Bellières, Plan Bleu) both developed by the Community4Tourism project.
- BLUE ECOSYSTEM project
Jordi Juarez (CPMR-IMC) presented the activities that have been carried out in 2024. He explained in detail the different elements that build the project (i.e., the blue economy, regional innovation and the helix quintuple) and how they pass through the project funnel to be translated into regional innovation labs, a transnational innovation programme and a transformative book that collects lessons learned, recommendations and next steps.
He also wanted to announce the dates of the workshops that are being organised by the regional partners to identify the main challenges of the blue economy in their territories in order to launch the call for transformative solution, which will succumb to an acceleration process.
Also, other projects in which the CPMR-IMC and some of its member regions are partners were presented, such as the recently closed EMFAF project REBOOT MED “Recovering, Experiencing and Boosting ecotourism in the WestMed area”, presenting the main WestMED policy recommendations to be delivered to the new WestMED technical Group on Sustainable Tourism.
Interested to know the results of the co-design/co-creation workshops? Stay tuned to our social media to discover it.
For further information about the project, please contact jordi.juarez@crpm.org
