MOVE project has launched a webinar series aiming to present the activities and progress of Ecosystem Services Assessment and Mapping Strategies (MAES) methodology implementation in the different project cases study regions (The Azores, Canary Islands, Saint Martin, Martinique, French Guiana, La Réunion and Falkland Islands). Each webinar is a valuable opportunity to exchange information among stakeholders, regional partners, and the general audience regarding the #MAES process in the EU Overseas Territories and the case study regions.
The first MOVE web seminar, focused on the case study of the Canary Islands, took place on June 18th. The University of La Laguna (ULL-Spain) presented through the Zoom platform the preliminary results of the use of modelling tools, which allow to estimate future scenarios on the state of ecosystems conservation. The meadows of Cymodocea nodosa, a marine plant that colonizes part of the coasts of the Canary archipelago, important in the supply of ecosystem services as an habitat for species of fishing interest and refuge for biodiversity and for carbon sequestration, were taken as samples.
This first approximation made by the ULL presented the model of spatial distribution of Cymodocea nodosa in the Canary Islands based on existing records of the plant, related to different environmental variables such as primary production or water temperature.
During the webinar, the Fundo Regional para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FRCT, Azores), coordinator of the project, also made a brief introduction of MOVE, while another partner, the University of Trento (Italy), presented the electronic forum, a communication tool between society and specially, the stakeholders in the mapping and evaluation of ecosystem services in the European outermost regions, and the members of the project.
This digital meeting was attended by 46 participants, mainly representatives from the academic world and from various research institutes in Europe and Latin America. An analysis of the organisational affiliation of the participants also revealed that people from all the Canary Islands attended the webinar, especially members of the University of La Laguna, the University Institute of Sustainable Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the Spanish Institute of Oceanography.
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