The Director General of Sustainability of the Coast and the Sea, Pablo Saavedra, participated today in a working meeting with the sectors involved in the INDEMARES project to analyse the possible future development of the integrated management project of the marine Natura 2000 Network.
 
The meeting, which took place at the Seville headquarters of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, was attended by the entities that have worked within the framework of INDEMARES, representatives of the fishing sector and partners in the integrated project proposal. The Indemares project has made it possible to protect 8% of the marine surface in Spain, with the inclusion of 49 new marine areas in the Natura 2000 Network.
 
Saavedra thanked “the effort made by the more than 300 people who have worked at INDEMARES”, while requesting “the same collaboration for the future, during the execution of the integrated project, a new challenge in which I am sure we all have a lot to contribute”.
 
In this working meeting, this integrating project was discussed, a programme that the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, through the Foundation, has presented to the LIFE 2014 Call to manage the Natura 2000 Network in the marine environment. Last September, the Biodiversity Foundation opened a process of public contributions to this project, during which 116 contributions were received from 49 entities, including represented autonomous communities, scientific bodies, fishermen’s guilds and conservation organisations.
 
The final version of this project, including all these contributions, has been pre-selected by the European Commission and will be presented for final evaluation on April 10.