The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment has participated in Tunisia in a follow-up meeting of the project “Conservation of ecosystems and sustainable artisanal fisheries in the Mediterranean basin (ECOSAFIMED)”, a cross-border cooperation initiative, coordinated by Spain and co-financed by the European Union, in which Tunisia and Italy also participate. The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment has participated in a follow-up meeting in Tunis of the project “Conservation of ecosystems and sustainable artisanal fisheries in the Mediterranean basin (ECOSAFIMED)”, a cross-border cooperation initiative, coordinated by Spain and co-financed by the European Union, in which Tunisia and Italy also participate.

During the meeting, held on 3 and 4 February at the National Institute of Marine Science and Technology in Tunisia, representatives of Tunisia and Spain made progress in the planning of the next oceanographic campaigns in the African country, which have as their main objective the identification of the habitats of the seabed. for which researchers from the ICM-CSIC have collaborated through the development of sampling methodologies and techniques.

Likewise, the meetings to be held with the fishermen’s guilds have been planned, whose main objective is the presentation of the project and its involvement in its development, as well as the delivery of different informative materials prepared within the framework of the project.

The ECOSAFIMED project is part of the European ENPI Mediterranean Basin Programme and promotes responsible practices in artisanal fisheries and the conservation of benthic ecosystems in the coastal regions of the Mediterranean. To this end, it foresees the study of different marine areas through oceanographic campaigns. In the case of Spain, areas of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands are studied.

In Tunisia, ECOSAFIMED officials also met with the European Commission’s National Contact Point in Tunisia and with other Tunisian authorities responsible for the management of funds destined for Tunisia.

ECOSAFIMED, coordinated by the Ministry’s Biodiversity Foundation, has a budget of about two million euros, co-financed by the European Commission’s ENPI CBC MED 2007-2013 Programme, and involves the Institute of Marine Sciences of the Higher Council for Scientific Research ICM-CSIC, the National Institute of Marine Sciences and Technology of Tunisia and the University of Genoa.