© Heidrun Frisch-Nwakanma

The Workshop on Management of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) for Small Cetaceans was postponed from April 2020 owing to COVID-19 pandemic. Now the workshop is going ahead online, on 18 May and 7-9 June 2021.  

The workshop, mandated by the 25th Meeting of the ASCOBANS Advisory Committee, is jointly organized by the Finnish Ministry of the Environment, WWF Germany, WWF Sweden, Coalition Clean Baltic, the Natura 2000 Biogeographical Process, and ASCOBANS.

The workshop aims to review and share experiences on best practice approaches to MPA management, taking them beyond being merely 'paper parks', in order to make recommendations to ASCOBANS Parties. The workshop will be highly interactive and led by a facilitator. The objectives are to:

• Discuss and make recommendations on criteria and clear options for well-formulated conservation objectives for small cetacean MPAs, and
• Discuss and make recommendations on a toolbox of ambitious and innovative practical conservation measures for small cetacean MPAs  

Due to limited seats, participation to the workshop will be by invitation only.  Nominations were sought from ASCOBANS National Coordinators early 2020. 

For any queries, please contact the Secretariat via ascobans.secretariat@ascobans.org .