Priority 2: Protect, secure and develop the potential of the Atlantic marine and coastal environment

During 2013 and 2014, storms have impacted strongly the Bask Coast on both sides of the border putting under risk persons’ and properties’ safety. In front of this situation, Bask local Administrations want to improve their environmental knowledge at local scales to better anticipate coastal risk management. To meet this need, local administrations and scientists have been coordinated by the GIS Littoral Basque to develop MAREA research project which purpose is to create local operative tools to help decisions-making about coastal risks and to build a transnational marine energy strategy in the Atlantic Area creating an adequate political and social environment for the marine energies.

A healthy marine and coastal environment is key to a productive aquaculture sector and aquaculture must be planned and managed appropriately to ensure that negative impacts are minimised whilst benefits are optimised, avoiding conflict with other users and maintaining biodiversity. When implemented effectively, a strong but flexible regulatory and licensing framework for aquaculture can achieve this and in doing so can protect, secure and enhance the marine and coastal environment. However, in the Atlantic area, as in the rest of Europe, there are many different approaches to aquaculture regulation and licensing. There is a clear need to establish coherent and efficient regulatory frameworks that will enable sustainable development of the sector resulting in increased food production, more jobs and also focus on environmental sustainability. An efficient regulatory framework for aquaculture would also be advantageous for marine spatial planning and regional development. The TAPAS project is exploring and testing innovative use of new and existing tools to maximise and manage carrying capacity more effectively. The tools will also support long term monitoring of ecosystem carrying capacity and environmental risks to make aquaculture more sustainable and transparent. The development of the TAPAS toolbox and the decision support tool TAPAS-Smart will provide approaches that can be adopted by national legislation and regulatory frameworks.