Thessaloniki, February 1-2, Greece
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) organized a 2-day national level workshop, entitled “Marine Litter: The need for knowledge, synergies and actions”, within the project MARLITER “Improved online public access to environmental monitoring data and data tools for the Black Sea Basin supporting cooperation in the reduction of marine litter” with funding from the Joint Operational Program “Black Sea Basin 2014-2020”, (European Neighbourhood & Partnership Instrument – ENPI). The workshop took place on Friday 1 and Saturday 2 February, at the hall “Manolis Anagnostakis”, at the New Town Hall of Thessaloniki. At the workshop, stakeholders in environmental protection, monitoring and reduction of marine litter participated, originated from national public authorities (i.e. Alternate Minister for the Environment and Energy), local public authorities (i.e. Deputy Mayor on Urban Resilience and Development Planning), scientific institutions, universities, businesses, NGOs, sectoral agencies, education/training centres. Through the presentations and the discussions, the necessity of taking joint actions, developing standardized, common monitoring protocols for marine litter, collating and producing standardized data, enhancing the public access on available data for environmental monitoring and ensuring social engagement were highlighted. The participated stakeholders committed to further contribute at the next steps of the implementation of the project.