As human activity around the world causes increasing pressure to marine ecosystems, species and resources, the implementation of efficient monitoring of the changing seas, is key for the protection of marine life.
To tackle those issues, the main goal of the ECOMARINE project is to improve the management and operation of marine conservation monitoring labs of the four Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia and India with the utmost target to upgrade the university services offered to both students, staff and society, as they cover a wide area of geographical oceanic environment. This will be done through an in-depth capacity building programme targeted at staff, scientists and other relevant stakeholders in Malaysia and India.
The main aim is the protection of marine life from pressures imposed by climate change, plastic marine debris, overexploitation of the fish stocks, as well as the human-induced destruction of productive and protected habitats by the installation of four new Marine Monitoring Labs in Asia.
ECOMARINE during its 36-month duration, will:
- Conduct in depth desk and field research on the specific needs of the marine monitoring systems in Malaysia and India
- Develop and design a comprehensive blended training programme, together with an online platform, covering both the theoretical aspects of marine protection and field-based activities at sea
- Organise a large-scale, capacity building programme, which will focus on the transfer of knowledge and expertise from the EU experts to the trainers of the four Asian Universities. The first phase will take place in Europe combining both theory and field-based activities. The second phase will take place at the national level in both Malaysia and India.
- Set up of 4 new Marine Monitoring Labs (one in each University from Malaysia and India), ensuring efficient long-term marine monitoring from the trained staff
ECOMARINE at a glance
- One comprehensive blended-learning training programme on marine conservation
- 24 exchanges of academic staff
- 78 academic staff from Malaysia and India trained
- Set up, organisation and operation of four Marine Monitoring Labs (2 in India and 2 in Malaysia)
- More than 500 academic and professional staff directly reached through dissemination and exploitation activities
