Proposals will contain a set of activities, but are not necessarily limited to, sustainable fishery management and practices, pollution reduction and sustainable shipping, prevention and control of invasive species, marine and nursery habitat preservation and protection, establishment of marine reserves, impacts of climate change. Activities for quantifying the impact of climate change (acidification, sea-level rise, deoxygenation, ocean warmings, primary production, phytoplankton and zooplankton, etc.) on ocean and coastal ecosystems and biodiversity will be important to understand the stressors.

Activities will be designed and carried out in partnership with local fishing communities and, where relevant, indigenous people as well as other relevant stakeholders (e.g.: shipping industry) to ensure that the tested solutions grant due consideration to their knowledge, expectations and needs. Activities will also support evidence-based data and awareness raising on biodiversity conservation in relation to local/regional development and capacity building and will establish good practices for nature-friendly local/regional initiatives and inspire specific transnational cooperation with EU Macro-regional regions.

Proposals may involve coastal communities with important biodiversity hotspots, including islands and the EU Outermost Regions in the co-creation of measures that meet the Mission’s aims while granting due consideration to local communities’ needs and values.  Proposals should identify areas and locations where the solutions are replicable and draw up an action plan and roadmap to replicate and scale up the ecosystem and biodiversity restoration solutions and actions.

Proposals are expected to work with and engage at least 5 ‘associated regions’ to showcase the feasibility, replicability and scalability of the solutions developed within the projects in other areas.
‘Associated regions’ are understood as areas with ecosystems that can benefit from the demonstration activities (e.g. neighbouring regions and/or regions in a different sea basin) and/or less-developed regions, with the need to build capacity to implement the innovative solutions to restore marine ecosystems and biodiversity. The proposals should ensure that the associated regions are located in Member States/Associated countries other than those that are part of the project consortium. (Further details regarding ‘Associated regions’ see the Funding & Tenders).

The projects funded under this topic should address all following issues:

• build links with other Mission activities and other relevant activities within the lighthouse and its area to maximize synergies, as well as with the European Blue Parks, other Mission lighthouses;
• build links with the Mission implementation monitoring system that will be part of the Mission Implementation Support Platform and with the Atlantic and Arctic sea basin lighthouse support facility and platform, for reporting, monitoring and coordination of all relevant implementation activities in the lighthouse area as well as with the Blue Parks technical support platform;
• support the Ocean and water knowledge system, in particular by contributing to biodiversity monitoring, modelling and knowledge creation and data.