MARBENA Creating a long-term infrastructure for MARine Biodiversity research in the European economic area and the Newly Associated states

Biodiversity can be defined as the richness of the biosphere, the species, the genes that they contain and the habitats in which they live. Many goods and services delivered by marine ecosystems that are essential to society depend on biodiversity. Biodiversity is threatened: species disappear at rates never observed before in the history of planet earth. This extinction crisis is due to the human species.

objectives

Ten years ago, in 1992, the Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro. Rio produced the Convention on Biological Diversity that has now been signed by nearly all European countries and the European Union. Since 1992 many initiatives for research on biodiversity issues have been launched, the majority of them local, short term and terrestrial. Marine biodiversity research was long considered less urgent because the main problems were thought to occur on land. Long-term biodiversity research, i.e. for more than 3 years, is very difficult to implement, even at the national level. Some of the major obstacles are the national and European funding systems and also the lack of an internationally agreed methodology for the measurement of marine biodiversity and the choice of indicators for biodiversity.

In 1994, the European Marine Research Stations (MARS) Network, a not-for-profit foundation based in the Netherlands, was founded to cope with these obstacles. In 2000 a MARS-related initiative, BIOMARE (Implementation and Networking of large-scale long-term Marine Biodiversity research in Europe), started. This concerted action, supported by the Fifth Framework Programme, aims at achieving a European consensus on the selection and implementation of a network of reference sites as the basis for long-term and large-scale marine biodiversity research in Europe, internationally agreed standardised and normalised measures and indicators for biodiversity, and facilities for capacity building, dissemination and networking of marine biodiversity research. Twenty-one institutes co-operate in the concerted action.

The BIOMARE concerted action is an important first step and will provide a framework for the implementation of marine biodiversity research on spatial and temporal scales that cannot be covered by traditional funding schemes. The next steps are of course the research itself and the subsequent transfer of its results to society. The rapidly growing interest in biodiversity, with Rio +10 (the Johannesburg UN meeting) and the new 6th framework programme, require a directed effort from the scientific community. What is needed as well is a broadening of the discussion to a wider range of subjects and to a wider audience by not only including more scientists of other disciplines (e.g. terrestrial biodiversity and biogeochemistry), but science managers and end users as well. To define the issues at stake an electronic conference on marine biodiversity in Europe (M@RBLE) was organised in October 2001. The objectives of the M@RBLE e-conference were to discuss the bottlenecks and their solutions in producing relevant knowledge and the implementation of this knowledge in policy, management and conservation; therefore contributing to the development of a network for (marine) biodiversity research in Europe. The results of the e-conference were presented at the meeting of the European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy EPBRS in Brussels, December 2-4 2001.

We believe that the present efforts, BIOMARE and M@RBLE, are an important start. However, more will be needed to support development and application of marine biodiversity research over a sufficient period of time to make the field mature and active on a truly European scale. The discussion on the issues at stake should not stop with the presentation of the results at one single meeting. Instead, the discussion should become a continuous process for at least as long as the EPBRS meetings are held, so that each EPBRS meeting receives a specific input from the field responding to the specific topic of that meeting. Starting from BIOMARE - that will produce a recommendation for a network of flagship and reference sites and a review of indicators - and M@RBLE - that produced through the e-conference and the link to EPBRS the first appearance of marine biodiversity on the EU policy scene - the next series of activities should be used to create a lasting network for marine biodiversity research in Europe. Such a network must adequately prepare and exploit the possibilities of the new framework programme and the European Research Area, must improve the infrastructure for marine (biodiversity) research and its accessibility and utilization by European scientists, and must increase the visibility of marine biodiversity issues for science managers, politicians and other end users, including the public at large.

The objectives of the present project are:

• To create the infrastructure for marine biodiversity research in Europe by creating a pan-European network of marine scientists, with strong links to the different stakeholders in Marine Biodiversity Issues, from the EU-EEA and the Newly Associated Nations, and that covers the European seas from the Arctic to the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. This network must improve science by cataloguing the existing expertise and infrastructure, by defining and prioritising the issues at stake in terms of scientific knowledge, technological requirements and application to societal problems. It must provide an intellectually attractive environment for young scientists and a discussion forum for all. It must promote the European presence and the organization of international research programmes and promote the discussion of their results and their application. It must provide the links between scientists and industrial companies willing to aid in technological development, between scientists and science managers and politicians and lead to better integration of research and a better insight into the 'market' of supply and demand of marine biodiversity information.
• To create awareness on the issues at stake and enlarge the visibility of marine biodiversity research in Europe, the network must make the issues - the scientific questions and the relevance of the outcome of the scientific research - clear to a non-scientific audience, it must communicate with EU policy makers and politicians (presentation of marine biodiversity issues at the European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy meetings, presentation to the European Commission and European Parliament when requested), with global organisations and programmes such as several IGBP programmes (GLOBEC, LOICZ, perhaps SOLAS), DIVERSITAS and the Census of Marine Life initiative, national and other EU biodiversity platforms (e.g. the BioPlatform thematic network) and dissemination of information to the public at large.

Hereby, the project contributes to the European Research Area (ERA) initiative. Special effort will be undertaken to involve the stakeholders from the Newly Associated States (NAS) in the network.

General coordination: Carlo Heip ,Herman Hummel and Pim van Avesaath Web site and conference hosted by VLIZ