On 7th August 2019, a meeting took place in Tabarka with the group of local stakeholders – Municipal Administration, fishermen, diving centers, tourist and environmental authorities – to discuss the monitoring and evaluation protocol for the marine and coastal protected area of Tabarka .
In particular, the meeting was intented to inform the interested parties of the work carried out by WWF North Africa to support the establishment of the aforementioned area and collecting the different points of view, so as to have an overall impression of the needs of the territory, in terms of conservation of the marine space.
During this meeting, the company responsible for drafting the protocol presented a report on the first phase of the study – with particular reference to the current condition of natural resources in the future protected area – and illustrated the indicators that will be used to assess the status of ecosystem health.
Following this intervention, participants had time to elaborate and propose changes and additions, which mainly concerned the impact of fishing and pollution within the future protected area.
These uggestions will be taken into consideration in the final elaboration of the protocol.
The WWF team also took advantage of the presence of the local actors group to present the annual report on plastic pollution in the Mediterranean – with an in-depth analysis of the situation in Tunisia – inviting interested parties to take measures to reduce their consumption and involving them in an event to raise awareness and collect waste, which took place the following day.