Professor Maria João Bebianno participated in the United Nations, as a Member of the United Nations Expert Group for the Evaluation of the Quality of the Marine Environment, including the Socio-Economic
Aspects at the event training partnerships between different stakeholders (researchers and political decision-makers), in the assessment of the state of the ocean, which took place on January 25th and 26th in New York.
Knowing the ocean, ensuring and benefiting from its sustainability, implies the ability to assess in an integrated way, all aspects of the marine environment, including the various activities and the pressures that is involved. The Regular Process is recognized as the overall mechanism for reviewing the state of the marine environment, including socio-economic aspects, on a continuous and systematic basis.
One of the main objectives of the Process is the training, since the ability to conduct an integrated assessment of the state of the ocean is not uniform at the national level, subregional and regional levels. The purpose of this meeting was to inform decision-makers and other stakeholders about the importance of the Regular Process, identifying priorities and gaps in human resources, research and political decisions. During the meeting several cases were presented, namely by identifying how scientific data can be successfully transferred into political proposals aiming at ocean sustainability.