The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, together with the Directorate General for Sustainability of the Coast and the Sea, has participated in Lisbon in the kick-off meeting of the MISTICSEAS project, a marine biodiversity monitoring initiative presented to the European Commission (EC) by the Regional Science and Technology Fund of the Government of the Azores.

The main objective of this project is to establish a common roadmap to ensure the improved implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) by the two Member States (Spain and Portugal) in the Macaronesia biogeographical region (Canary Islands, Madeira and Azores).

The proposal was submitted in November 2014 to the call of the Directorate-General of the European Commission for the Environment (DG ENV/MSFD Action Plans/2014) and was selected last June.
The project, which has a total budget of 649,747 euros and 80% co-financing from the EC, was selected last June and has a duration of 15 months.

Also participating in the project are the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, the Regional Directorate of Marine Affairs of the Regional Government of the Azores; the Regional Secretariat for the Environment and Natural Resources of Madeira and the General Directorate of Natural Resources, Safety and Maritime Services of the Government of Portugal.

The Biodiversity Foundation will provide the scientific-technical teams for the monitoring of marine biodiversity, the coordination of awareness-raising actions, the establishment of cooperation networks and the preparation of the Joint Action Plan.

MISTICSEAS is part of the EU directive for marine environment policy, which aims to achieve good environmental status in the marine environment by 2020.  To this end, coordination between Member States will be a key aspect of achieving this goal. The Macaronesian subregion is one of the largest, most biodiverse and least studied of the European seas. MISTICSEAS will design a common methodology for monitoring marine biodiversity in the sub-region, focusing on populations of mammal, turtle and seabird species.