© TUDAV (Turkish Marine Research Foundation)s
exist in the surrounding countries. “Political
borders are the University of
meaningless; there are no boundaries in the sea,” says Professor Ferdinando Boero of
Salento and
coordinator of the CoCoNet project. The main aims of the CoCoNet project
regard two priorities for the Mediterranean and Black Seas Seas. The
ecologically
protection through the establishment of new arrays of MPAs in the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the entire Black Sea. However, this alone is not enough to protect biodiversity in the area. One of
the main problems
stems from the criteria used to establish MPAs in the first place. They are generally created in areas of subjective natural
priority is maintaining biodiversity, after which other
factors such as threats to
environmental quality are considered. All organisms rely on their natural
“Political borders are ecologically meaningless; there are no boundaries in the sea”
first was to produce guidelines for creating networks of MPAs that are connected, a far more cohesive and effective strategy for conservation. The second was to produce a smart wind chart to aid the installation of offshore wind farms. The CoCoNet Consortium comprises 39 institutes from 22 countries in three continents, acknowledging that the protection of the environment and the ensuing sustainable development is not a matter of political boundaries. The CoCoNet guidelines recommend increasing the geographical coverage of
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beauty, but this beauty will disappear if the functions of the systems that sustain them are not also protected. Beauty is often necessary to convince people that a place deserves protection, but protecting only this is not sufficient to warrant successful conservation. Creating networks of MPAs can help to
protect the environment in a more effective way than isolated MPAs. Any action is sustainable only if good ecosystem functioning is promoted and maintained. Marine
biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are the pillars of this. The first
habitat, and all habitats in the sea are connected to those surrounding them as well as other more distant habitats. The sea connects all areas together in ways that are not immediately obvious through an intricate network of currents and gyres, with habitats dependent on the plankton and other nutrients that are brought in by the constantly moving water. “Connectivity is the key word when looking at conservation in the sea,” explain Boero. “All areas of biodiversity are connected by the currents, so we must find units of conservation that can help us design networks of MPAs.” The scientific community has a tendency
to err towards reductionism, carving up systems into constituent parts and studying them separately. In the field of ecology, this allows researchers to break up the vast web of interactions between organisms in an ecosystem that is otherwise too unwieldy and complex to study. Although useful, this approach is susceptible to overlooking the emergent properties of a system – it cannot recognise whether a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In the Mediterranean and Black Seas, the EC’s Habitats Directive
Insight Publishers | Projects
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