In mid October, representatives of 13 partnering organizations from 7 European countries gathered together at the University of Tuscia in Viterbo, Italy for the kick-off meeting of the new EU funded Mission Ocean project EUROLakes. Everyone looked eager to join the conversation about the project’s integrated approaches for the protection and restoration of the European lake ecosystems and their biodiversity.
The meeting was opened by the project coordinator Ruba Hilal and project manager Aleksandra Starcevic from Wetlands International – European Association, welcoming all participants and introducing our distinguished guest presenters – Daniele de Bernardi from CINEA, EUROLakes Project Officer and Marcin Sadowski, DG MARE who talked about the scope of the project and its expected outcomes, accompanied with the vision of Mission Ocean Secretariat on the policy context.
The first day marked also our first synergy activity with the introduction of two sister projects – FERRO and ProCleanLakes – who familiarized partners with their objectives and projected results while expressing their willingness to further discuss opportunities for collaboration and knowledge exchange.
The busy agenda over the next two days flowed into project members’ first workshop on the 4 Returns Framework, the foundation on which EUROLakes landscape activities will build upon, presentations of all work packages, discussion of their interrelations and planning for first steps. The event concluded with an exciting field trip to one of the project’s lakes – Vico, which is part of the Lake Vico Natural Reserve. We all enjoyed the beautiful scenery of this lake of volcanic origin and were genuinely interested to learn more about the issues related to its conservation and their socio-economic impact.